Two Amigos: Steve Martin and Martin Short together onstage

By and large, telephone interviews with comedians are not joke-a-minute affairs. In fact, for the most part, they are often more business-like than even an interview with a new business owner, for example. The comics are not calling to do their routine, after all, but to talk about their job, which so happens to be making people laugh.

Still, one can't help but expect an interview with both Steve Martin and Martin Short to include a laugh or two, and it does. The big one comes near the end when they are asked if they have a need to constantly create, and if they have the kind of brains that are constantly working.

Martin: "Well, I do."

Short: "Here we go."

Martin: "Sometimes it's like playing tennis by yourself."

Short: "You know I'm on the line, right?"

Martin: "Oh, I thought you'd left but it's like if you hit the ball over the net, then you have to run over ... .

Short: "No, we got the analogy before. You don't have to explain."

Martin: "There's not even a backboard ... ."

Short: "OK ..."

It's this kind of banter that you expect from not only two of the funniest people on the planet, but two guys who have been friends since meeting and starring in the 1986 comedy "Three Amigos." It's also the kind of back-and-forth fans can expect during their upcoming show, Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life featuring the Steep Canyon Rangers and Jeff Babko.

It also brings to mind some of the comic legends of old who were quick with a joke or a quip. People like Groucho Marx, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle and Jack Benny.

"Jack Benny is my hero," Martin says of the comparisons.

"Our show kind of does resemble what they did. Marty and I have said to each other at one time or another, 'You know that one moment there, I was completely doing Jack Benny there.'

"I always say it like this: 'Those guys made me love comedy, and whatever their influences are, you don't want to copy anybody, but subconsciously they do influence you. They were so funny.'"

Short adds that while most people talk about Groucho, he is more of a Harpo Marx guy. "If you watch my reels, you can see elements of it."

The two spend most of their nearly two-hour show onstage together making people laugh, but there are a few individual moments. They make a good deal of fun of celebrity culture, but Martin also plays banjo with bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers, and Short does some of his well-known characters and celebrity impressions, often with the help of his musical accompanist, pianist Jeff Babko, a member of the house band from "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

Short is a veteran of "Second City Television" in his native Canada, where he created his Ed Grimley character and perfected impressions of people like Jerry Lewis and Katharine Hepburn. He brought those with him to "Saturday Night Live" in 1984.

He later created Jiminy Glick, an overblown, overstuffed celebrity talk-show host whom Jerry Seinfeld described as a "barnacle on the hull of show business." Short, as Glick, once asked Mel Brooks, "What's your big beef with the Nazis?"

During Glick's interview with Steve Martin, he said, "I would think when you do jokes, you would want people to laugh."

Martin began his entertainment career in 1967 writing for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." His big break in stand-up comedy came as it did for most comedians of his generation - via an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."

His albums "Let's Get Small" and "A Wild and Crazy Guy" earned him two Grammy Awards and made him a huge star able to fill 18,000-seat arenas on a regular basis. His third and fourth albums, "Comedy Is Not Pretty" and "The Steve Martin Brothers" were also nominated. He essentially quit doing stand-up after those tours and reinvented himself as multitalented entertainer capable of doing just about whatever he wanted.

His credits include TV, movies, author, musician, composer, emcee, writer, producer. He's done it all and with great success, garnering dozens of awards and nominations. He's also an avid art collector and critic.

His films include "The Jerk," "Parenthood" and "Three Amigos," which co-starred Chevy Chase and Short. Though the two had never before met, Martin and Short became and remain good friends after the film.

The show they will do Thursday was not originally intended to be a regular gig. It was originally a bit they presented as an interview between the two at a Just for Laughs comedy festival in Chicago in 2012. As you might expect, it was well-received.

"But we realized we needed material," Martin says. "We can't keep doing this. It would become stale. Marty had material, and then I had some material from my bluegrass band with some comedy material. We kept working on it and kept blending it until we got it into a nice show that is good for the audience.

"There is nothing more fun than just coming up with jokes for it."

Short says much of the material for the first show came "from the 8,000 or so dinners we've had over the years."

Both say the material is constantly evolving.

"What's fascinating is that while the audience is on its feet and we are walking off the stage, one of us will say, 'You know that one line I think we can improve it,'" Short says.

Martin says that one of the ways the show remains fresh for both the audience and the stars is that they only do three or four shows a month.

"During that early stand-up period, it was the culmination of 18 years of work," he says. "I was touring every night, doing 60 days in 63 cities. That can be wearing, but I needed to do it to stay on top of it, but working with Marty, we can stay on top of it without doing it every night. The break is good. Everybody is happy to see each other when we get back together."

Martin says doing the show with his friend is "the one time in my life that I enjoy performing because, before, performing was always stressful. You know, because I was the only person out there. I felt a little nervous, but there is something fun about having a partner you can riff off of and share the joy and the pain with."

Short counters that he has mostly worked in ensembles or improv groups.

"I'm used to being onstage with other people, so if you bomb you have someone to laugh about it with afterwards. If you bomb alone, it's kind of a horrible feeling."

At which point Martin breaks in to add, "By the way, we don't really bomb. You make it sound like we bomb all the time."

Short laughs that off and says, "No, I was saying when you bomb in life I'm actually talking about with Second City and improvisation. If you tried something and it didn't work, you could laugh it off. It wasn't like doing stand-up up at Yuk Yuk's [comedy club], so it is joyful to be doing something with one of your best friends."

Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.