ALL IN THE FAMILY (BUT USE THE INSIDE VOICE FOR PENISES)
“You want to teach your kids about heartache and loss, buy a hamster,” Eddie Pence says. The line comes near the end of a series of laughs about how we think about our pets. For example, we panic when a dog “gets lost,” whereas cats just leave. “It’ll be back in a week with something dead,” he says.

Pence fashions laugh lines out of the familiar flotsam of 21st century dad life, and sometimes steals them directly from his toddler son. He’s performed at the HBO Aspen Comedy Arts Festival and HBOs The Comedy Festival in Las Vegas, and has appeared on Comedy Central and the Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Pence comes to Laff’s Comedy Caffé, this weekend, with shows at 7 and 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Nov. 25 and 26. Laff’s is at 2900 E. Broadway Blvd. Admission is $10 to $15 with a two-item minimum. Make reservations at laffstucson.com. Artist information is at eddiepence.com

RIFFING ON A LIFE
Public Defender Abby Louise Jensen is featured in the T.I.M. Soap Box performance at 9 p.m., Friday, Nov. 25. The Soap Box improv team spins scenes from true stories shared by each week’s guest. An attorney with the Pima County Public Defender, Jensen is vice president and general counsel at Southern Arizona Gender Alliance and co-chairs the Tucson Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues. Before all that she parachuted into wildfires for a living.  The show is $5 at T.I.M. (Tucson Improv Movement), 329 E. Seventh St., tucsonimprov.com.

HAVE YOUR IMPROV AND STANDUP, TOO
Comedy impresario Matt Ziemak’s mind = blown. “This is my baby,” he said in announcing the event. “I thought of this idea when I was really lonely in L.A.“ Tucson Improv Movement debuts a comedy show he invented that melds improv and stand-up into a new format called “Set - Unlisted." In the performance, comedians do their routines and then improv teams, who have been kept out of the room, create scenes from fragments of the comic’s notes. Guest comedians for the premise’s debut are Mo Urban, Ali Musa, Rory Montserrat, Pauly Casillas and Ziemak’s co-host T.I.M. company member Leland Long. The show is $5

RETURN OF THE WILDCAT
Wildcat Comedy, formerly on Mondays at Illegal Pete’s, returns on Tuesday, Nov. 29 at The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress St. The show will benefit from fewer frat boys daring companions to take the mic. Opening comics are hosts Rich Gary and Matt Ziemak plus Dom Ditolla, Randy Ford, Charles Ludwig, Leland Long and yours truly. The Screening room serves beers, movie snacks and Empire pizza. tsrdowntown.com.