There is a carrot pie flavor jelly bean. (Ew.)

The longest carrot recorded in 1996 was 16 feet, 10 ½ inches.

The heaviest carrot recorded in the world weighed 18.985 lbs (1998 - single root mass).

If cows eat too many carrots, their milk tastes bitter.

The Flaming Carrot was a mysterious and demented comic book superhero.

Orange County Fair: A Whole Lotta Fun

Carrot Top's Tops For Laughs

By Kelly, Entertainment Reporter
Photos © GoodTimes-LA

he 110th Orange County Fair is in full swing, and GoodTimes-LA was there on Thursday, July 18. Armed with tickets to Carrot Top's show in one hand and a corn dog in the other, we dashed through the crowd with oohs and aahs. Oh, to be a kid again.

We here at GoodTimes-LA love food on a stick! You can never go wrong with the venerable corn dog on a stick. Other food on a stick options at the OC Fair this year included cheesecake on a stick and egg roll on a stick. What'll they think of next? Alligator on a stick? Waffles? Pickles? (See Minnesota's State Fair.)

While venturing through Kidland, a section of the fair filled with kid-friendly rides, we noticed the "Ghost Pirates" haunted ride. The operator looked bored so I asked him, "Are we too tall for this ride?" He happily waved us on for a freebie. Other free goodies at the fair this year? How about a handy dandy chip clip from the Los Angeles Times booth, or a bumper sticker from KIIS-FM radio? Since we were in Kidland being ten again, we stopped to pet the animals at the petting zoo. How fun it was to frolic with the baby goats, llamas, a baby pig and a zebra.

The food was plentiful, that is for sure. I found a delicious cream puff pastry booth. Danger, Will Robinson! Tasting that flaky pastry filled with chocolate whipped cream whisked me to heaven. I tried a baby bowl of pasta from one of the vendors. Frankly, it tasted like Chef Boyardee. I'm sure it was. A friend ordered deep fried zucchini. Wow, you certainly get your money's worth there. If you order the zucchini, ask for a doggie bag. You'll need it.

The Orange County Fair is a pleasant gathering of folks from all over southern California. The fairgrounds are clean and well-maintained. Aside from being attacked by the occasional stroller, it's easy to walk around. There are many rides and game booths to choose from (and to lose your money on). We walked through a campy exhibit called "The Weird Al Experience" which showcases props and memorabilia relating to Weird Al. From his high school yearbook to a wardrobe closet to a glass-boxed Grammy award, it's all here. You can even watch Weird Al's videos.

At 8 p.m., we were treated to a performance from Carrot Top. I must say that I went into the show not expecting much. After all, I find those AT&T commercials to be highly annoying. Lemme tell ya, this show was superb. That wacky Carrot Top has a great mixture of props, personal jokes and musings, special effects including strobe lights and a projection screen at the rear of the stage, and sound bites including snippets of songs incorporated into certain jokes. All in all, it's a must-see Good Time!

Carrot Top fires out his own brand of humor with rapid-fire succession while often snickering at his own jokes. He told the audience he's jealous that the members of *NSYNC get paid millions to sing and dance while he's stuck crazy-glueing and duck-taping props together for a living. This comedian is the master of clever homemade inventions. The audience was laughing almost non-stop and I found myself having to gasp for extra oxygen on many an occasion.

The fellow Angeleno opened his show with a rip on L.A.'s traffic, calling an orange construction cone the "California State Tree." He dedicated a segment of his performance to the plight of the airlines and their security. There were jokes about checking in your tiniest bags or walking through the security checkpoint with big bags of cocaine and weed now that the focus is on terrorists. For one bit, he donned a monstrous backpack, about the size of a king-sized mattress, and pretended to walk onboard an aircraft and say, "It's okay, I'll just toss this into the overhead bin." Then he went on to pretend he was at Saks Fifth Avenue as Winona Ryder: "I'm just browsing." Ouch, my stomach hurts!

And then there are the props. Carrot Top travels with over 30 trunks full of his creations. On stage Thursday night, we saw nine of them. There was a microphone with a bong attached so that Whitney Houston can take a hit mid-song, a tray for bulimics which includes an attached toilet ("I wanna be a supermodel! Puke!"), a flask tie for the American Airlines pilots, and a fork with pre-recorded messages such as "Yes the food is good, yum yum," for those times that the waitress asks you how your meal is while you're chewing your food. How about holding a dog leash, with no dog, while walking through a Vietnamese restaurant and calling for your missing pup? For some fun next time you're driving and you see a hitch-hiker, take Carrot Top's advice and throw on a Crash Test Dummy mask before you pull over and offer a ride to the next town. This is the part where I lost one of my lungs from laughing too hard.

One trunk contained redneck props with the likes of a cell phone (an actual pay phone that hangs on your belt), a graduation cap (a green John Deere baseball cap with a tassel), and a boot with a built-in kickstand for drunk cowpokes. There goes my other lung!

The wacky comedian spoke about music and golf, and how we've come full circle in this country. How is it that the best golfer is black and the best rapper is white? How true. He asked, "Who watches golf?" and then proceeded to snore. He posed such questions as why do the golf announcers whisper?

"Who here likes Britney? How about Metallica?" Carrot Top then wondered aloud what it would be like if Metallica sang Britney Spears. The lights went down and we were suddenly transported to a Metallica concert with Carrot Top as the band's singer. Singing and growling just like him, he performed his own heavy metal version of "Oops I Did It Again."

For his finale, Carrot Top dove into his "rock and roll" trunk which consisted of wigs, costumes, and props which he used to make himself into many famous rock stars, one after another. With superb lighting and a concert atmosphere, cheering crowd and all, he made himself into Guns N Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, Bono of U2, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Dolly Parton, all five members of KISS, and so many more. He finished by wearing nothing but American flag/striped pants and a flag scarf wrapped around his neck, a la Mick Jagger. At the end, he fell to the ground after turning to face the audience with an oversized pair of lips stuck to his face.

Has anybody seen a pair of lungs?

Dial down the middle to the official Carrot Top site.