Brady talks about the crazy times

Wayne Brady turns 40 in Vegas on Saturday, and he will celebrate by performing Friday-Saturday at The Mirage, then hosting a birthday bash at 1 Oak nightclub.

One of the highlights of Brady's life happened in Vegas a few years ago: the night he performed onstage with Prince. Back then, they both had regular shows on the Strip, and Brady planned to go see Prince at the Rio:

"I bought tickets for my cast, for my singers, my dancers and myself," Brady says. "Then my office gets a call saying, 'Your tickets have been refunded. You're Prince's guests.' "

So Brady went to see Prince and: "During the show, he says, 'All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm bringing somebody up right now onstage - Wayne Brady.'

"I about crapped myself," Brady says.

Together, they sang "Play That Funky Music." Then Prince put Brady in charge.

"Prince looked at me and went, 'All right, it's all yours.' He walked off stage and let me sing. I was leading the band and dancing.

"I had to go into showbiz survival mode at that point. I went, 'Well if Prince trusts me, I really can't look like an idiot.' "

If that's not a crazy enough memory, here's another: Brady met James Brown backstage at a Kennedy Center tribute to Brown, and Brown made Brady dance as if he were on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

"Young man, I've seen you on TV when you're dancing like me. Go on and dance real quick," Brown instructed him.

"So in the middle of the hallway at the Kennedy Center, I started dancing and singing like James, with James Brown watching me and clapping. That was amazing."

Brady's show at The Mirage centers around his improvisational skills.

"This is one man as a whirling dervish, singing and dancing in the audience and on the stage," he says.

Brady's next season of "Let's Make a Deal" is starting. He's also taking his one-man show to Broadway next year. And this July, he co-stars in ABC's "Trust Us With Your Life."

"It's pretty much 'Whose Line: The Next Generation' meets 'This Is Your Life' and 'Biography,' " Brady says.

CORDDRY AT FILM FEST

Rob Corddry ("The Daily Show," "Hot Tub Time Machine") enjoys engaging in Twitter feuds. Last week, a Twitter troll named @FIREFOX___ wrote, "Hey @robcorddry you should beg for your old daily show job back."

Corddry replied, "Oh man! That's an idea Firefox Underscore! I'll ask Jon!!!"

Corddry tells me he never retweets compliments, only insults that are "either so artfully stupid or really solid insults."

"This last guy is such a (expletive) idiot, but I love his blunt cruelty," Corddry says, laughing.

I troll Corddry by jokingly asking him (a Boston native) if, by attacking Twitter haters, he was just being a typical drunk and angry Bostonian.

"True. Absolutely true. Very right," he says.

Corddry is coming to Vegas this weekend to host a short-film competition at The Cosmopolitan. It's called Tropfest (no relation to the Tropicana).

It's free to attend. Also on the bill: Toni Collette, Rebel Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia, Griffin Dunne, Charles Randolph and Trevor Groth.

Corddry has several big films in production. He also produces and stars in the comedy "Children's Hospital" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. (The fourth season starts Aug. 9.)

And Corddry says people should join him at Tropfest, because it gives filmmakers "a real opportunity to get some sort of traction." See details at Tropfest.com.

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