Comedy Review:

If you don’t want to be rendered the center of attention at a stand-up comedy performance, don’t sit ringside, and don’t admit you’ve been married 50 years.

One septuagenarian couple amiably found themselves setting the tone for the evening of sharp, PG-13-rated humor Sunday at Fritz Coleman’s 18th annual Comedy Night at the Glendale Centre Theatre. The event benefited the Glendale-Crescenta Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Ron Farina, executive director of the Red Cross chapter, opened the performance, reminding the audience that the Red Cross had some not-so-funny responsibilities in August and September, maintaining shelters and evacuation centers during the Station fire. After thanking supporters and contributors, Farina introduced Coleman, and the rest of the evening was one of pretty much uninterrupted laughter.

Coleman, the weather-caster for KNBC in Los Angeles and a regular face on local charity fundraiser stages, began by noting that he is not a licensed meteorologist.

“It doesn’t seem to matter, though,” Coleman said shrugging. “I get away with it because I look like one.”

Coleman said he feels like a bit of a dinosaur anyway, lamenting the trend that fewer people seem to get their news from television.

“It’s all computers and pop-up ads now,” he said. “There’s a pop-up ad advertising how to get rid of pop-up ads on your computer.”

With that, Coleman introduced the first of the four comedians he lined up for the evening’s entertainment.

Genial Brian Kiley was as sunny as his bald pate and exemplified the humor that ran throughout the evening: seasoned comedians who cut their teeth writing for late-night hosts like Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. The humor is topical, quick, teasing, but never cruel, and never profane.

“I have kids, and when we first went to price baby carriages, we saw that they were all $500 and $600,” Kiley said. “We decided to have strictly indoor kids.”Kiley explored an easy subject — family — from today’s children universally on medication (“Both my kids are on Rogaine — their request”) to his own parents.

“I love my parents, but they made some mistakes,” Kiley said. “Take my brother, Vivienne . . .” Rim shot! “

My dad’s allergic to cotton. He has some pills for it, but he can’t get them out of the bottle.” Badda-bing!

Next up was Steve Byrne, whom Coleman noted was about to tape his first Comedy Central special.

Byrne spent some time riffing on his Korean/Irish ancestry and people’s tendency to respond to his protestations that he’s “just an American” with, “No, really, where are you from?”

“What, do they think there’s some mutant south sea isle with just me, Keanu Reeves and Tiger Woods alone on a beach?” Byrne asked. “What’s with the whole Latin-Korean-African-American thing? Have you ever heard of an African-Canadian?”

Upon learning that the ringside couple had been married a half-century, Byrne bemoaned the fairy-tale expectations of young girls.

“Women wait around for their prince on the white horse to show up,” he said. “Get up off your butt and go meet him halfway!”

The third performer, Wendy Liebman, started by complaining that the airline that brought her to Glendale was so bad that they lost her carry-on luggage. She’s a tiny, droll comedian whose throw-away line readings are twisted punch lines.

“I dated a doctor once,” Liebman said. “Ear, nose, throat and ankle. I didn’t know how to break up with him, so I just ate an apple a day.”

Liebman asked the long-married couple their secret.

“My grandma always said to never go to sleep angry,” Liebman said. “Of course, she’s been awake since 1927.”

Last up was Nick Thune, who is cute enough to make young girls’ hearts flutter. Borrowing from an old Steve Martin routine of accompanying himself on guitar while riffing verbally (Martin used a banjo), Thune’s morose humor was presented as well in one-liners (“Lifesavers only work if you’re diabetic”) as in hilarious longer “songs.”

MELONIE MAGRUDER is a journalist and screenwriter who founded an English-language theater company in Paris, a project undertaken for the art, not the money.