Let me direct you to a short but nice article on Howie Mandel in The Canadian Jewish News. Howie's one of the good guys in the business and if you've never seen him do stand-up, you're missing something. He improvises on stage more than any other comedian I've ever seen. What he does up there is not for kids and now that he has a hit with Deal or No Deal, he'll probably have the problem Redd Foxx had, which was people who came to see him, thinking he was going to be as clean and lovable as ol' Fred Sanford. Still, it's a small price to pay for fame and fortune.