For 10 years, Vinnie Favorito was one of the rare comedians with an ongoing headlining show on the Strip. A practitioner of a then-popular performance style known as insult comedy, the Boston native drew crowds eager to be the butt of his jokes.
For some of them, though, they played the role of the mark after the show as well. Asking audience members what they did for a living wasn't just Favorito fishing for material — he was looking for high earners who might loan him cash, mostly for his gambling addiction.
By 2015, he ended up talking his new fanbase and industry connections out of reportedly more than a million dollars. It was two casino workers at the Flamingo — one who says Favorito hit them up for cash — who finally reported the comedian to Caesars brass. Shortly after, the comedian lost his show, ran into legal problems, and declared bankruptcy.
Detailing all of this is a new locally produced documentary, Vinnie Plays Vegas, now available to rent online. The film is directed by comedian Brian Burkhardt, and is co-written by Las Vegas entertainment journalist Mike Weatherford, who reported on Favorito's rise and fall during his time as a columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
A few of the revelations Weatherford shares about the insult comic and the movie about him:
- Favorito would hit up just about anyone, not just wealthy audience members. This included other card sharks and comedians, businesspeople, his neighbors, even a casino barback. "In the old days, they say that if a cocktail server had a family emergency, Frank Sinatra would take a C-note out of his pocket and say, here, go help your family," said Weatherford. "Well, this was sort of the reverse. This was the entertainer borrowing from the cocktail server."
- Favorito's creditors would struggle to be paid back, only to hear another story of need from the comedian, and lend him money again. Some of those who spoke in Vinnie Plays Vegas report giving him money multiple times, occasionally in the tens of thousands. "His photo was up on the posters in the Flamingo and his name was up in lights, so to speak," said Weatherford. "So there was this element of, 'Hey, you know, I'm good for it, I'll pay you back, you know where to find me, you know where I am every night.'"
- The movie almost didn't have an ending... until Favorito, who left town, returned for a gig. "Brian kept saying, you know, we're making a monster movie, and we're not showing the monster," said Weatherford. "So we didn't really know where all this was going or what to do with it. And then right before the pandemic, he came in and did that Dirty at 1230 [show] at the South Point and agreed to have his whole set be filmed, and then agreed to that limited interview backstage. And that kind of gave us our endpoint of the movie. And even though you can debate whether he did a good job of telling his side of the story, at least he had a chance to do it."
Mike Weatherford, entertainment journalist; co-writer, consulting producer, and participant, Vinnie Plays Vegas
