Despite those handicaps, he's funny. Funny enough to sell out theaters across the country. Funny enough to move 100,000 CDs. Funny enough to land his own Comedy Central special, at 10 p.m. Sunday.

What gives?

"I never found someone else's pain funny," says Regan, who performs at the Tower Theater Saturday. "I like everybody to be happy. I'm not the type of person who likes to watch people twist in the wind."

Then please, don't sit next to us.

Like Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres, Regan's humor is G-rated and observational. His generic topics are instantly relatable, from specialized greeting cards to lost baggage to drivers using cell phones.

Oh, he also does funny faces and goofy voices.

Coincidentally, Regan opened for Seinfeld a few times on tour. Sharing the bill "was sort of like being knighted," Regan says. "He's one of the purest stand-ups out there."

Unlike most stand-ups, however, Regan, 49, harbors no secret ambition for sitcom stardom. Though he's developing a sketch show for Comedy Central, his true passion lies in live theater.

"I'd be happy to do stand-up my whole career, without a doubt," he says. "I love everything about it. The energy of the crowd, the immediate feedback. I can find out that night whether or not a joke is funny."

Another plus: He's his own boss - a good thing for someone who has "an incredible problem with authority." He decides what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. He's director, producer, star.

Regan never set out to be a "clean" comedian. It just happened that way.

When he first went on the road, his shows were already 90 percent clean, he says. Occasionally, when he did the whole set without any naughty words, he invariably got compliments from people in the audience.

"Those were the jokes I preferred, anyway," he says. "The others were just attention grabbers. If I was that close to the finish line, why not go all the way clean?"