Comedian Explains His Act After Comedy Central Cuts Jokes on Colorado Shootings

By DAVE ITZKOFF

The comedian Jeffrey Ross says that the tradition of the celebrity roast is “one of the last bastions of free speech.” But he's not looking to go to battle over a bit he performed at a recent tribute to Roseanne Barr that invoked the deadly shootings in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater - material that Comedy Central will not show when the tribute event is broadcast on Sunday.

“I didn't intend for that joke to be part of the broadcast,” Mr. Ross said in an interview on Monday evening. “Those roasts are very bawdy. There's a lot of my comedy friends in the audience, and my experience is that they put the biggest jokes in the show. I'm O.K. with that.”

“The Comedy Central Roast of Roseanne,” the latest in that cable channel's series of loving if insult-laden commemorations of celebrities like Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen and Joan Rivers, was taped last Saturday in Los Angeles. There, Mr. Ross, a veteran roast performer, delivered a couple of jokes that compared Seth Green, the actor and fellow roaster, to the accused Aurora gunman James E. Holmes.

“Congratulations,” Mr. Ross told Mr. Green, according to an account of the roast at EW.com. “This is actually a really big night for you. You haven't gotten this much attention since you shot all those people in Aurora.”

When that line drew an uncomfortable response from the audience, Mr. Ross said he was kidding and added: “You're not like James Holmes. At least he's doing something in a movie theater that people remember.”

Industry trade publications like The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline Hollywood said that Comedy Central would not show these jokes when the “Roast of Roseanne” is shown on television. (In an e-mail, a press representative for the cable channel confirmed these reports.)

Mr. Ross, 46, said in the interview that he was comfortable with Comedy Centr al's decision, noting that the material had already “got a lot of play” on the Internet. Asked how he decides before a roast what is or is not an appropriate joke to tell, Mr. Ross answered: “I think if it's done thoughtfully it's appropriate. If it's done carelessly, it's inappropriate, and I always put a lot of thought behind these roasts. I work weeks on my speech and my performance. I go in guns-a-blazing. You don't bring a knife to a gunfight.”

At this same event Mr. Ross dressed as Joe Paterno, the disgraced former Penn State football coach who died in January. (At the roast of Mr. Sheen last year, Mr. Ross showed up as the Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi.)

Explaining the Paterno costume this year, Mr. Ross said, “My intention certainly wasn't to glorify Joe Paterno. I think about Mel Brooks and the way he ridicules the Nazis in his movies. You're not going to get back at anyone â€" you can never kill the Nazis â€" but you can get your revenge through making fun of them.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Ross said that in advance of the roast he had consulted with his sister, who he said works as a special-education teacher, because he was having second thoughts about the outfit.

As Mr. Ross recalled the conversation: “She said, ‘When we were growing up in New Jersey, how many people did we know were victims of abuse?' And I thought about it and I said none. And she said, ‘Because nobody talked about it.' And now people are talking about it and comedians have a responsibility to shine on a light on it.”

He added: “When I see something that's sensitive, I go, you've got to put that out there. You need to keep the dialogue going and shine a light on the bad guys. If you sweep it under the carpet, people forget about it. People stop talking about it.” (Deadline Hollywood said that Comedy Central had not yet decided whether to show his closing joke: “Now I'm gonna take Seth Green and hit the showers! ”)

Mr. Ross will continue to be a prominent personality on Comedy Central in the weeks ahead. In addition to his appearance on the “Roast of Roseanne,” he has a new special, “Jeff Ross Roasts America,” making its debut on Saturday, and a six-episode series, “The Burn With Jeff Ross,” starting Aug. 14.

For these projects, he has filmed himself flinging one-liners at celebrity pals like Sarah Silverman and John Stamos, as well as people he encounters around Los Angeles. (As Mr. Ross recounted telling a meter maid, “Why don't you write something useful, like a suicide note?”)

The tradition of the roast as a place to tell edgy, potentially offensive jokes would endure, Mr. Ross said, because “people love to see public figures get taken down a notch, and by the same token, everyone loves to be the center of attention, even when there's a target on their forehead.”

Any uproar over his excised jokes about the shooting would probably be shortlived, Mr. Ross predicted. “Society should be more focused on guns that kill instead of jokes that sting,” he said. “I'm not hurting anybody. Comedy's all about innuendo. I'm putting out there just like anybody else.”

That he could not actually get these particular jokes out to a television audience was beside the point, Mr. Ross said. He pointed to an incident that occurred at a 2010 Comedy Central roast of David Hasselhoff, where, while Mr. Ross was wearing a minimal “Baywatch”-style bathing suit, he accidentally exposed himself.

“Bad taste is not a crime,” Mr. Ross said. “That doesn't mean it has to be broadcast.”