Deal!Howie Mandel plays Alaska Airlines Center Sunday night

It’s been 35 years since Howie Mandel first performed in Anchorage, and when he returns thisSunday for a one-night show at Alaska Airlines Arena, it’s safe to assume things will be a littlemore tame. Back in 1984, the comedian, actor, producer, talent show judge and host of NBC’swildly successful ‘Deal or No Deal’ made his Alaskan splash at PJ’s, a now-defunct bar of ratherill-repute in Spenard. Fresh off the release of his first HBO special—a standard for havingmade it in stand-up comedy at the time—It’s a show he remembers with vivid, even lurid, detail.“My first time ever in Alaska—wow, I can’t believe how filthy it was. That was when the pipelinewas at its height and I had the best time,” Mandel recalled. “I had strippers opening for me, andone of them said, ‘I’m gonna do something special.’ So she put gum in her mouth, split it in two,put a piece on each breast, then stuck a match into each piece of gum, then hit the 8-track withREO Speedwagon.”Then things got downright dangerous.“The music was blasting, they hit the switch to turn off all the lights and she lit the matches andthe crowd went crazy for these two little flames that lasted like 15 seconds until there was thisblood-curdling scream and they turned the lights on,” he said. “Iguess she didn’t think until thematches burned down to the end and she was screaming, but that was Howie Mandel’s entreinto Anchorage.”For this visit to Alaska, his first in five years, Mandel is bringing his wife along with his regularopener, veterancomic John Mendoza with hopes of seeing the Northern Lights topping hissightseeing ambitions. Strip clubs are decidedly not included on the itinerary.“I got into the business on a dare at a comedy club in the mid 70s and my act at the beginningwas brought with fear and anxiety,” Mandel said. “I’m very improvisational in the moment—it’sjust a giant party and I’m the center of attention. I just go with the flow and I’ve always gone withthe flow, whether I’m somebody at PJ’s who had no idea how he gotthere.”Much of Mandel’s angst came from his struggles with attention deficit disorder as well asobsessive-compulsive disorder manifest in germophobia, which in recent years has garneredhim a certain degree of additional fame, but early in his career accidentally led to the bit thatwould springboard him to success as stand-up comedy’s irascible wild child.Because of his condition, which left him paralyzingly fearful about so much as shaking handswith another person, Mandel would carry a latex glove inhis pocket. On stage one night, hedecided to put the glove over his head and inflate it with his nose. This became his signature bit.“I really kept (the germaphobic) a secret. I was a child of the 50s and 60s and people didn’treally talk about it,” Mandel said. “The stigma lifted maybe 15 to 20 years ago, but back thennobody questioned why I had a latex glove in the first place, let alone put it on my head. Now, ina world of caring and a business where sharing is my currency, I’ll come out and talk about itthat night.”Mandel said being able to turn his handicap into a comic advantage wasn’t any sort of catharsis.“I wasn’t that introspective; I didn’t think about whether it was therapeutic,” Mandel said. “Thefact that I found comedy, though, became therapeutic because I always felt like a pariah, an

outcast. I was thrown out of school for behavioral problems mostly undiagnosed at the time. Mybehavior was what I had been outcast for, but then it was what I started getting paid for.”That recognition opened up new opportunities including a major role on the hit NBC series ‘St.Elsewhere’, playing the immature and clownish Dr. Wayne Fiscus alongside stars-to-be MarkHarmon and Denzel Washington. At the time, it was largely unheard of for stand-up comicstogarner roles in dramatic series.“The natural transition, as for most in my era, did was their own sitcoms, but as luck would haveit they had 13 episodes (contracted) for St. Elsewhere and they didn’t like the way it was comingout. So they asked me, can you act? And they took me to the producers,” Mandel said. “Theygave me the part, and I was the replacement, but I did six years on that show.”In those pre-Internet days, Mandel recalled, fans of St. Elsewhere didn’t know he was a stand-up comic and vice-versa.“At one show a woman said to my, my husband bets you’re Dr. Fiscus, but he’s not the sameguy who blows up the rubber glove. People who knew me from standup comedy didn’t know mefrom St. Elsewhere and young parents who knew me from ‘Bobby’s World’, didn’t know I wasthe same person from either of those.”Along the way, Mandel voiced a number of animated characters, including the adorable Gizmoin the 1984 smash ‘Gremlins’, a fact many of his fans to this day may not know.But by the turn of the century, Mandel’s career was beginning to run out of steam and by 2005he was prepared to leave the business. That’s when a most unlikely opportunity arose andprovided Mandel with one of the great second acts in American life. NBC asked him to a host anewgame show that was more of laboratory experiment than any sort of game, and after somereticence about what he would even do as the show’s host, Mandel accepted the job, and 14years later, ‘Deal or No Deal’ is still running strong.“I was so scared; it was just an hour of just saying what? I mean, I’m not even reading triviaquestions; it’s just open case No. 1, No. 2, No. 3—what was I going to do?” Mandel said. “Itbecame that social experiment, so much so that people continually write in psychologytextbooks chapters on ‘Deal or No Deal’, so for somebody who didn’t go to college to be intextbooks, to be in Wall Street studies on risk vs. reward is unbelievable... I’m a guy whodoesn’t even have a GED.”Mandel said he’ll never forget Karen, the first contestant he guided through the briefcases. Asingle mother in need of health insurance for her kids, who said ‘no deal’ to $35,000 only to walkaway with $5,000, which Mandel said in other interviews, she used on breast implants. Somepeople in need walk away from even bigger sums with far less to show. It’s these sorts of heartsinking financial disasters encountered by common people who can least afford them that give‘Deal or No Deal’ a cultural gravitas other game shows lack. Mandel said he often tries to steercontestants into making sound choices with the tone of his voice.“Even though I’m a comedian I’m first a human being, a husband a father and I’m faced withpeople making decisions that are hopefully changing their lives. I went into it with plansto bereally funny and goofy, but I found that, you’d better just listen to me,” Mandel said, thinkingback to Karen’s scenario in particular. “She gets an offer of $35,000 I’ll make an intonation tosay, ‘take this’ and at the end of the game, I’m so embarrassed for anything to be broadcast. Iwasn’t funny; I wasn’t trying to be funny; I was empathetic. I care about these people leavingwith a good experience.”

In that moment, Mandel began to understand why they wanted a comedian hosting this oftencruel game show.“Because there is no skill, no trivia, anything can twist and turn in the moment,” he said. “It’s alive audience so you have to have the tools to kind of keep control of whatever it is you’redriving... watching these people’s emotions go from high to crazy disappointment, it’s anincredible drama and the intense moment is not only steering them through it, I’m learning it likethe audience is—I’m on the edge of my seat. I’ve learned a lot as somebody whose job It is todrive that 90 minutes, todo what I need to do to be comfortable and respond in the way peopleneed me to respond—all of those skills go into hosting that show.”The show has also helped Mandel identify with people not in the cushy Hollywood life he’sexisted the better part of the last 30 years.“My biggest fascination in everything I do, and always has been has been listening—CandidCamera was my favorite show as a kid, where rather than a joke, you’re watching to see howpeople react to awkward and uncomfortable situations—that’s the fuel that drives me each andevery day; I realize I’m not alone in this pool of discomfort,” Mandel said. “That’s why I lovegoing to standup—ladies and gentlemen, Howie Mandel outside the bubble of L.A. or NewYork and see what people relateto. The game taught me that when you wipe away theexpectation of rhythmic joke and laughter, how these people are and how they react to stress,you get to the stories of where they are at in life.”The rules and expectations for what is acceptable in comedy have changed considerably sinceMandel got started. In recent years they’ve changed so fast and the consequences for going outof bounds have become so severe that even an old pro like Mandel hastrepidation about goingon stage, thanks especially to the rise of social media.“Not only on stage as a comedian, but in life there was a time where if you said something thatcrossed a line, even if you weren’t a comedian, you could say, ‘I was just joking’ and it was OK.But now you can’t just joke. Even as a professional comedian, with technology, anybody in yoursolar system is able to record you to test whatever it is they heard, without any context—it’svery dangerous. It’s talking without a net now,” Mandel said. “I’m more uncomfortable now than Iever was. I even worry about doing interviews like this; how something I said will be interpreted.Can it be construed as something that crosses a line? There was a time when I didn’t worryabout that.”Tickets are still available but going fast for Sunday night’s show at the Alaska Airlines Arena onthe campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage.Mandel says, that even if you’re not familiar with his work as a comedian—or with thenumerous other liveshe’s lived in four decades of showbiz—Sunday’s show is worth yourwhile.“Every night is somewhat different and I know everybody’s in their life and there’s so manythings happening, but if you wanna just escape for a couple of hours and don’t want anythingbut a good time, show up,” Mandel said. “My time on stage is an escape from real life, and theysay laughter is the best medicine, so let me be your pharmacist.”