‘Last Comic Standing’ preview: Howie Mandel plus a split decision

Is Howie Mandel on a quest to conquer all of NBC? It certainly seems that way, at least when it comes to some of their reality programming.

The “America’s Got Talent” judge, who still makes tons of money as a touring comedian, will be appearing as a mentor on Thursday night’s “Last Comic Standing” to give advice to the comics as they try to take on the challenge of being tour leaders at Universal Studios. There’s a funny line about Q-tips in here from Lachlan Patterson, but that’s really all that we see here.

The other notable highlight? That there will apparently be a seriously split decision among the judges as to who they should eliminate after two comics show down once again in a face-off. What happens if they can’t make up their mind? We could see them eliminating no one and having two comics go home next week, but we’d also be down with there being a trial by combat.

Seriously, though, we wouldn’t mind if everyone stuck around for another week, given that there is some sort of roast coming up in a week or so, and that is always one of our favorite things to see, though we have no clue how they are going to be able to do it on a network that recently censored Anna Paquin on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” for saying something that rhymes with “kitties.” They’ll have to get super-creative, which may actually be a part of the challenge.

What do you want to see on the next “Last Comic Standing” episode? Sound off in the comments below! Also, to get some more news worth laughing about now sent right to your email inbox, sign up for our official newsletter. We’ll have a review for the episode up after it airs.

Photo: NBC