When he’s not busy being dad, Gaffigan’s busy getting laughs

Every time I talk to Jim Gaffigan, he has a new kid. I'm not even joking with you.

"I have five kids, Doug," he says. "I have more kids than live in North Dakota."

Gaffigan - who performs Friday and Saturday at The Mirage - is raising a newborn in a small apartment in New York with his wife, his comedy co-writer Jeannie Noth Gaffigan.

Jim and Jeannie have two totally different energy levels. For her, five kids is no problem. For him, "one kid is a crisis."

"She's a tank," he says of Jeannie. "She's the oldest of nine. She is an endless-energy kind of person. And I'm someone that shouldn't be in charge of anything.

"She already looks like she could wear a bikini. And I look like I've been eating bikinis."

You can see that difference in family portraits, Gaffigan says.

"There's pictures whenever a baby is born," he says. "She's always holding the baby. And I always look like the person who had the baby."

Babies are hard, weird work.

"First of all, they're not smiling. They're just kind of uncomfortable. And they're unhappy. They're just looking around. They can't really focus. They just seem wildly disappointed that you're their father.

"But I love parenting. That's the irony."

I tell Gaffigan that every time I see him on TV, I think about him and his wife raising all those kids, and it reminds me of "Little House on the Prairie."

"Yeah," he says. "During the days of 'Little House on the Prairie,' they had kids to help them on the farm. ... And now it's just Mormons and crazy people like me that have a lot of kids."

He's counting on them to help him during old age.

"I'm charging them for all this stuff. I'm going to present the bill when they graduate from high school."

During his Vegas gigs, he is checked into a hotel with his wife and five kids. Can you imagine? That's so crazy.

So you might see them eating in a restaurant somewhere.

But you probably won't see Gaffigan eating shellfish, because his comedy routine about seafood has turned him off of crustaceans.

"I like lobster and shrimp, and I've eaten crab. But ever since I started honing in on this seafood material, now I can't really eat it.

"I associate seafood or shellfish so much with bugs in my act, it kind of ruins it," he says with a laugh.

"Even lobster - which everyone loves - I'm like, 'It is a giant scorpion, right?'

"If you talk about that three times a week in shows, it seeps into your consciousness."

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.