When “Saturday Night Live” veteran Jim Breuer first came to Bay Street Theatre two years ago, he “crushed the place,” he said in a recent interview.
Now Mr. Breuer is coming back to Sag Harbor for a second go on Monday, July 27, and he says this is also the month when he ventures back into the national spotlight, starting with the premiere on Saturday night of his Comedy Central special “Let’s Clear the Air.”
He said he has played it low-key since his last one-hour special, “Jim Breuer: Hardcore,” but now that his three daughters are getting older and wondering what their daddy does to make his money, he is ready to be front and center again and is even developing a family sitcom based on his own life.
Though he has toured steadily since he left “SNL” in 1998 and has made occasional appearances in film and television, much of his working life has been limited to the radio since 2004, when he first hit the satellite waves with “Jim Breuer Unleashed” on Sirius Radio. Before that, he regularly appeared on the “Opie and Anthony” radio show, which he said really put him on the map.
He made his first foray into radio, he said, so he could spend more time with his three daughters, Gabrielle, 10, Kelsey, 7, and Dorianne, 4.
The comedian, who turned 42 last month, is originally from Valley Stream, in Nassau County, where as a young man—too young to get into comedy clubs, let alone perform there—he opened for his friends’ bands. When his parents retired to Florida in the late 1980s, he moved to the Sunshine State and performed across the Southeast. After just a few years he returned to New York to put all his effort into turning comedy into his career. It turned out to be the right move, because in 1995 he was cast in “Saturday Night Live,” and stayed with the show for three seasons.
When he left the grind of “SNL,” Mr. Breuer set out to start a family with his wife, Dee, and they settled in Chester, New Jersey. He compared Chester to Mayberry, the fictional town in “The Andy Griffith Show,” saying, “The whole place shuts down at 9.”
On his radio show, “Fridays with Breuer,” which now airs just once a week, Mr. Breuer often talks about his neighborhood. It’s the kind of place where the cops know everyone—and what car everyone drives, he said. In fact, when his niece came to visit she was pulled over just for having an unfamiliar car.
Mr. Breuer said that radio enabled him to find a different side of himself. Rather than the rapid-fire pace of standup comedy, the radio allowed for him to take his time and tell stories.
He has also embraced the internet, cutting together home videos starring him and his daughters and posting them on jimbreuer.com. The site also features some of his “Saturday Night Live” sketches and other television appearances.
“It’s all about the internet now,” Mr. Breuer said. “Because of YouTube, I’ll be touring Europe next year.”
He recently learned that an old standup bit of his became a YouTube hit in Holland, Sweden and other European countries. “I had no clue,” he said.
The bit is about the “party in the stomach” on a night out drinking, with beer starting the festivities before being joined by scotch and saki. Eventually tequila shows up and ruins it for everyone—and the bouncer tells everyone to get out, through “the way you came in.”
Mr. Breuer also has a movie in the works. He’ll be playing the voice of a crow in Kevin James’s upcoming film, “The Zookeeper.” Mr. Breuer said he has only done minor voice acting parts in the past, but Mr. James personally asked him to take a major role in “The Zookeeper.”
His sitcom is in early development at this point, but he said it will be based on his own life: being married for 18 years, raising kids and having elderly parents. He said he wants to make the kind of show he could laugh at and enjoy alongside his young children.
His “Let’s Clear the Air” special, which was filmed back in September, is aimed at doing just what the name suggests, Mr. Breuer said. He’ll talk about what went on behind the scenes of the 1998 hit he co-starred in with Dave Chapelle, “Half Baked,” what he’s been up to since then, and who he really is—just a Long Island guy with a blue-collar upbringing.
When he returns to Sag Harbor, he’ll have a lot to say about Long Island, he promised. And though he grew up in the “up-island” community of Valley Stream, he said that East End residents will still be able to relate.
Though many of the seats at Bay Street on Monday may be occupied by fans who enjoyed his visit two years ago, he said others who don’t know what to expect can be reassured: “It’s better than any therapy, a lot cheaper, and it will blow away any film you’ll see.”
