Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco surprised fan impersonators at a contest in Atlantic City, NJ — even crowning a winner who bore a striking resemblance to the hit comic!
“It’s very flattering,” Maniscalco told an amped-up crowd at the Ocean Casino Resort’s Nola Bar before announcing of the winner. “I felt like I was looking in a mirror.”
The competition had eight contestants — including one woman who went by the name “Chelsea Spaghetti” — who performed their take on the Italian comedian most famous riffs.
Maniscalco, 52, later took the stage at the sprawling hotel’s Ovation Hall as part of his “It Ain’t Right” tour, performing a set that covered parenting and middle age.
“I went to my son’s soccer game, I don’t bring a chair or nothing, he’s six,” he said. “Everybody is bringing a campsite. Blankets, umbrellas, Thermoses. What the hell are you doing?”
In another joke he talked about a family trip to Universal Studios.
“I go up to the guy to buy tickets,” he started, saying the worker asked how tall his son was. “This tall, guy, you are looking right at him. I didn’t measure him with a measuring stick before I came to the park. We barely got his socks on. What is this? Two feet? You got anything for two footers?”
During opening comic Pete Correale’s set there was a medical emergency that stopped the show briefly, and the lights were turned on as he called for any doctors in the crowd to help out.
“It’s a live show, this is why AI will never replace live entertainment,” Correale, who had earlier judged the contest, cracked when the show resumed.
Maniscalco also noted the situation, joking, “I heard we stopped the show, I hope they are OK. I don’t know if it was a medical thing or somebody threw up on themselves. Somebody could be drunk already.”
We are told the person was dehydrated and was OK.
Maniscalco, who brought his mother to the gig, will be back at the resort next weekend from Sept. 25 till 28.
The hotel rolled out the red carpet for his appearance, with a giant billboard on the side of the hotel, an area with cannolis and Italian food dedicated to the comic and giant life-sized cutouts placed throughout the hotel.
We hear at least one drunken casino guest stole a cutout the early hours and brought it back to his room.
The hotspot recently hosted an event for Jay-Z and Michael Rubin’s Reform Alliance, bringing out Beyoncé, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Kevin Hart, Travis Scott, Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden, Jamie Foxx, Winnie Harlow, Odell Beckham Jr., Meek Mill, Robert Kraft and Michael Novogratz.