WHAT DOES A STANDUP TELL HIS SON?

Let’s all wish Casey Toomey a happy first birthday on Saturday. Casey is the son of Chicago comic Mike Toomey and his wife, Beth. He also has an older brother, 2 1/2-year-old Shaun.

Maybe Casey is a little young to be thinking about his future after only a year on this Earth (at this point he’s probably more interested in his toes than anything else). But life is hard, and the sooner you get a jump on things, the better.

Casey might consider following his old man’s footsteps and become a standup comedian. Stranger things have happened, and besides, there are plenty of comics out there who are just as developed mentally as Casey is now.

Casey, listen to your dad:

“Well, if or when he were ready to do it, if it were the way it is now, I would not want him to do it,” says Mike Toomey, a comic himself for 12 1/2 years.

“I would recommend it to him as a side (job), if he thought it were cool. But I’d say have something else to bank on, too.”

There’s a nice, uplifting piece of birthday advice for Casey. But his pop has seen how comedy has turned since he got into it, so Toomey knows of what he speaks.

Toomey enjoyed the highs. He has appeared on Comedy Central’s “Comics Only” and “Standup-Standup,” as well as MTV’s “Half-Hour Comedy Hour,” and A&E’s “Comedy on the Road.” Now Toomey is going through the current lows that a lot of comics have been saddled with.

“When I got on board, it was 1982 and it was taking off,” says Toomey, 31. “And I didn’t see any problems there. Especially as when time went on, it kept getting better and better.”

The state of comedy now, according to Toomey, is one of disarray. He sees clubs shutting all over the country, lower salaries for standups, more comics than ever all vying for work at the clubs that remain, and fewer dates for comics to perform.

He’s still able to make a steady living, finding work in the Chicago area and around the country. “It’s just I’m finding that I have to work a lot harder to get the same things that I got five, six years ago,” adds Toomey, who was born in Carol Stream and is about to move with his family to Oak Forest.

Well, let’s figure that Casey may want to be a comic at 18, the same age that Papa Mike started. That means the year 2011. Will the current situation of standup be the same as it is now, or will it be a climate where Casey can be as successful as his dad?

Dad obviously can’t predict the future for his craft. “The best way to do that,” Toomey says, “is go back 18 years from now,” which would be 1976.

“In 1976, there were probably a handful of comedy clubs in the United States, and there’s still many, many more than that now.

“The guys who were happening then were like George Carlin, who’s still great. But then there were a lot of the David Brenners, the David Lettermans . . . anybody who was doing it back then had as good a shot of doing (network) TV.”

Now, “the options are mostly in cable, and hopefully you can work up to doing what (the `70s comics) were doing very early on in their careers.”

The comedy world of 18 years ago was strikingly different from the way things are now. So there’s always a chance things will again change for Casey when he’s 18. His father certainly hopes so.

“By the time he’s 18, hopefully it will have leveled off and become something special again,” says Toomey. “By that time, I’ll be the oldest hack in the world with a bad suit and a toupee.”

Bad suit and toupee? We can’t talk about that. But hack? Never. Toomey has long been one of the most enjoyable and talented comics to work in Chicago. You’ll get a chance to see that this weekend at the Funny Bone-Naperville, 1504 Naper Blvd.-Tower Crossing Shopping Center (708-955-0500 for show times and reservations).

And if you do come out and see Toomey, wish a happy birthday to him for young Casey.

Last yuks

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Former Chicagoan Taylor Mason, an entertainer who mixes standup, ventriloquism and music, is working out at Zanies-Vernon Hills (230 Hawthorn Village Commons, Vernon Hills; 708-549-6030) through Sunday.

Poppy Champlin and Tony Boswell will provide the standup, the group Ectomorph will bring sketch comedy, Matt Besser will throw in something called “character creations” (on Sunday), and you bring cash to the Improv (504 N. Wells St.; call 312-STAND-UP) this weekend.

Comedy is coming to suburban Dolton with the opening of Joker’s Palace. The new club is at 14421 Greenwood Rd., will be open on Fridays and Saturdays, and will be hosted by Chicago comic Brenda Wall. This week Monique is appearning, and the grand opening next weekend features Reggie McFadden, who was impressive during All Jokes Aside’s comedy festival a few weeks ago. Call 708-841-4800 for more details.