COMEDY NOTES
‘Best Week Ever’ comic Finnegan casts around to find his niche
By Nick A. Zaino III, Globe Correspondent | September 22, 2006

His face should be familiar. Christian Finnegan has been on nearly every episode of VH1’s hugely popular “Best Week Ever” clip show since its inception in 2004. He was the main actor in a racially charged parody of MTV’s “The Real World” that aired on “Chappelle’s Show” just as it hit its peak . He’s headlining the Comedy Connection tonight and tomorrow.

Yet Finnegan sounds like he’d be shocked if anyone recognized him. He’s still getting used to the novelty of fan mail. “I’m honored that anyone would think to e-mail,” he says. “I don’t take that lightly. I’m not at the point yet where I could or would want to hire a team of 30 monkeys to respond to my MySpace mail.”

Finnegan is at the point in his career where people have seen him, but he hasn’t found his niche in the industry. He says he recently went through pilot season in L A , when networks cast for new sitcoms, and tried out for about 25 different parts. Though he has lost several pounds since then, casting agents wanted him to read for typical chubby, funny-guy roles — the type he calls “football lovin’, beer drinkin’, wacky friend,” characters nowhere near his comic or real- life personality.

“I just remember going in for this part once, and they gave me the [script], and it was like, `Enter Pete. He’s no stranger to cheese fries,’ ” Finnegan says. “That’s how we were supposed to know who this character is.”

He shrugs it off: You can’t get typecast if you aren’t cast. And most of his recent effort has gone into his stand-up and his new album, “Two for Flinching,” due out next month . He’s hoping the album and his college and club work will separate him from the attitude of “Best Week Ever.”

“A lot of people expect my stand-up to be all smarmy and ironic, kind of above it all, and it’s not,” he says. “I actually care about the things I’m saying, for the most part. I mean, some of it’s just goofy. But the stuff that I want to talk about onstage is the stuff that affects me more, that I have a strong opinion about.”

Not that he’s complaining about the VH1 gig. It puts people in the seats at his shows and raised his profile enough to book the Connection dates. But he’d like to pursue a broader audience. “I’d rather appeal to [a] hipster than somebody’s dad, but at the end of the day, I’d like to be able to appeal to both of them,” he says.

Christian Finnegan plays the Comedy Connection tonight at 8 and 10:15 (tickets $22.50) and tomorrow at 8 and 10:15 p.m. ($25). Call 617-248-9700 or visit