Local comedian Wayne Burfeind was dressed in a bright orange hooded sweatshirt and orange sneakers when he arrived for his performance Friday night at the Joke Joint in Bloomington. He might have looked like an overgrown pumpkin, but he became suddenly serious when I asked him about the importance of the Joke Joint, an emerging comedy club that is giving stage time to a community of comics who have few places to perform.

Twenty minutes later he was back to buffoonery, opening his set with a joke about how the iPod is the vagina of digital electronics. "If you have one, every guy in the room kinda wants to see it," he said. "Maybe act like he knows how to work it."

One year after the Joke Joint opened in the old Thunderbird Motel (it's now a Ramada), business is finally on an upswing. The place is the brainchild of Ken Reed, a part-time comic who opened the club with his wife, Becky, after moving here from Florida last year. They pride themselves on having a club that's open to local comedians.

The club brings in acts from the national stand-up circuit three days a week. While a casual fan might recognize a name like Bruce Baum, many of the comedians are probably better known by stand-up connoisseurs. Reed likes to joke about the club's underdog status. "Robin Williams isn't doing our stage this weekend," he said, referring to Mrs. Doubtfire's surprise three-day stint at Acme earlier this week. "But maybe we should get on that," Becky added.

During the late '80s comedy boom, there were tons of stand-up clubs in the Twin Cities. Today, Acme is the only stand-alone club. Acme owner Louis Lee said he likes the quality of acts at the Joke Joint and hopes more clubs succeed. "The more the better," Lee said. "Overall, the more stage time for local artists, the better off the whole comedy scene is."

Last week's headliner was 20-year veteran John Knight. While he never made it big-time, he was hilarious. "I went to a nude beach once," he said during one routine. "Got kicked out after 10 minutes ... something about the way I was applying my sunscreen."

The crowd roared at zingers like that. Barb Foline of Bloomington said she's been to the Joke Joint more than a dozen times. For this outing she brought the whole family. Like true Minnesotans, the crew thought the $12 tickets couldn't be beat.

"Mystic Lake wants $69 for Larry the Cable Guy," Foline said, referring to the blue-collar comedian's tour this summer.

Her brother Tom chimed in: "But you couldn't have laughed harder than we did tonight."