Cash, Cabs, Comedy - Ben Bailey steps out from behind the wheel

Ben Bailey says his voice and the back of his head get recognized more than his face. Though the comedian has been doing stand-up for 25 years, he's now best known as the host of Discovery Channel's game show "Cash Cab." The show -- on which New York City taxi hailers unknowingly hop in Bailey's cab and have the chance to win money by answering trivia questions -- was revived in December after a hiatus with a batch of six episodes. Following that success, it returned last week with a new season.

"My name might as well be The Cash Cab Guy," Bailey jokes ahead of his visit Aug. 4 to Cherokee Casino in West Siloam Springs, Okla., for a stand-up show. "But honestly, my goal is for [audiences] to forget that I'm the guy from 'Cash Cab' during the show. It's a lofty goal, I know, but I just want them to see that ... 'Cash Cab' came from stand-up, not the other way around."

And though he'll touch on a few stories from the show during his set, Bailey says people are sometimes surprised at how the swearing comedian on stage differs from the game show host. He's mostly the same person, he promises, but Bailey has so much more going on than asking taxi riders trivia questions.

"Comedians, we're all hosts in a way," he muses. "We're all like, 'Hey, I feel like I have something interesting enough to say that you might want to hear it. So let me take you on this little trip.' And for me, that part is literal -- I'm actually taking them on a trip.

"I've always been a storyteller," Bailey adds. "Long before I knew that I was going to be a stand-up comedian -- which I knew in the first minute of ever being on stage -- I was a storyteller and I didn't realize it."

He realizes it now, though, and puts that storytelling talent to work in projects like his podcast with fellow comedian D.C. Benny "Tall But True," the amateur storytelling contest show he hosts called "What's Your Story," projects through his production company Triple B Productions -- like the recently wrapped web series "Stakeout" -- and in his band, where he is preparing to release original music.

"I love it so much, I tend to listen to it over and over and over," Bailey says with a laugh of his forthcoming music. "I'm spreading myself a little too thin, maybe. But I just have a lot of stuff I really love to do. Way before stand-up comedy, I wanted to be a musician and then I wanted to be a filmmaker, and I just stumbled into stand-up comedy. And then 20 years later I'm like, 'Well, wait a minute, this has been great, but what about these other things I wanted to do?' And so now I'm trying to do all of them at the same time."

NAN What's Up on 07/29/2018