Out comedienne EllenDeGeneres taped her newest variety show, “Ellen’s Bigger, Longer and Wider Show,” as part of the TBS presentation, A Very Funny Festival – Just for Laughs in Chicago, on June 17, at the Chicago Theater. “Ellen’s Bigger, Longer and Wider Show” airs on TBS on Saturday, June 27.

“I’m excited to be [in Chicago] just for that reason. And you know I’ve performed many times in that theater, so it’s fun to go back to that theater that – I kind of started there, I think my first HBO special, ‘Women of the Night’ was there. So that’ll be fun.”

DeGeneres cites her appreciation of Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” as an early influence. “I watched Johnny Carson every single night, and was just in love with him, and had no idea that that would be something I would do later in life. So I’m sure watching those shows, it seeped in, and put that bug in me to end up doing this for a living. That, and my parents’ only vacation, they took us to Warner Brothers Studios. Our only vacation as a child, I was on a train going to California to see the set of ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ I think that tells you where my parents said, ‘Hey, this would be fun to do for a living, kids.’”

She also valued that Carson provided opportunities for comics to get national exposure and hopes to replicate that. “I just love helping people like that. I know when I was coming up, and I was in clubs, I did humor that wasn’t the norm, and so sometimes because it was quiet – like the one-sided phone call to God, or whatever it was, [or] if it was a little more cerebral – an audience filled with alcohol would scream stuff out and not appreciate it. And it’s really tough to try to stand out and not compromise and not try to please and stay true to yourself. So I love helping people like that.”

DeGeneres was anxious to do another variety show after her last one. “I’ve always wanted to bring this back. I mean this is something I wanted to do before I did my second sitcom, when I did the second show. I really wanted to do a variety show, and we did a pilot and it didn’t get picked up. I really was sad, because it was kind of a behind the scenes – it was sort of a ‘Larry Sanders’ version of a variety show. So it was me hosting a variety show and then behind the scenes (of) a variety show. And I thought it was a great idea, and, for whatever reason, it wasn’t the right time, and it didn’t happen.

Comparing the variety show format to her stand up comedy, DeGeneres is often asked if she has a preference for one over the other. “I’m asked, obviously, a lot to do standup again, or go to Vegas and it’s something I’m not really ready to go back to. I don’t want to say never, but I did it for so long, and I was so happy to move into another venue, another format, and I love doing the talk show, because I get to come out and do a monologue, and then talk to people, and still get to be funny whenever I feel like it, or serious, if there was no pressure in that. I get to come out at the same thing, I’ll do a monologue, I’ll probably do five, 10 minutes up front of standup, and then I’ll interact in between each act.”

DeGeneres also likes the fact that the show will be fairly structured. “The lineup is pretty set, the only thing that I’m doing at the end that would be different and unpredictable is I’m – when I used to tour, I would always do Q&A at the end of every show, I would just let the audience stand up and ask questions, and it gave me an opportunity to just talk one-on-one with them, and see what they were thinking, and think off the cuff like that. So that’s the only thing I guess that we won’t know how that turns out is the Q&A at the end of the show.

“But I’m doing a magic trick on the streets with David Blaine that I have not been told about; I don’t know what I’m doing with him. So I’m pretty excited about that. I met David at a party that he was doing crazy, crazy card tricks and illusions, like, in front of my face, and I didn’t know how he was doing it. So I’m excited about that. I’m excited about Kanye (West) and Joe Wong, the comedian, (and) Rollo-Bollo, which is this balancing act that’s insane to watch. So everybody, Nick Cannon’s DJing, the whole show’s going to be great.”

As much as she enjoys the variety show format, don’t expect DeGeneres to leave stand up altogether. “I may go back to doing another stand up gig once in a while, I don’t know. I keep setting the bar higher and higher for myself, and I think I’m more critical of the quality of work and what I do, and I try to pick very carefully what I do so that I can do it as best I can. But I think they will get their fix, and I enjoy all the formats and everything that I get to do.”

The process for selecting guests is quite different than she uses on her talk show. “I can’t even tell you, [we screened] thousands of tapes from all over the world to try to get performers. We have this woman (Layne Cramer) who’s a contortionist, who we had on the show, who is crazy. I mean, I do yoga every day, but she’s pretty impressive. She does more than downward dog; I’ll tell you that, [but] that’s all I’ll tell you about her. When we did the outdoor show recently for my talk show, we had these people that were balancing a woman on a beam and throwing her up in the air, because we were outside. So whenever there’s a bigger stage, we just look for bigger acts; you just want a bigger stage, and a bigger performance.”

DeGeneres is hoping to avoid the pitfalls that have doomed other attempts at variety shows. “I think, unfortunately, when there’s a bunch of money involved, once it gets to television instead of just a comedy club, you have a bunch of voices interfering, saying and testing things, and saying that’s not testing well, let’s do it this way. And they make the writers change; they make the producers change. And it’s kind of watering down the talent, which is the problem. And you can’t; you got to let somebody do what they do best, and not try to please the masses, because unfortunately maybe the smartest, funniest stuff is not going to appeal to the majority of people, because it’s just a lot to think about, and a lot of people just want to turn on the television and not have to think.

“So I think that’s what happens when you’re on television instead of when you have a chance to just to show someone’s pure stand up. But we have a guy (Wong) on our show that we saw on Letterman who is fantastic, and I love having standup on. I’d like to have it on my show more. But unfortunately I don’t see too many people that really make you think, and aren’t dirty, and aren’t controversial.”

Of course, the big question for regular viewers of her daily talk show is “will she dance?”

“I think I’ll probably dance. I don’t know what would happen to me if I broke a hip; I think the show would be over. I don’t know if I ever will stop dancing, because I can’t. Even if I didn’t want to dance anymore, I have to dance. So it’s just funny the places that people will – I mean I literally will be in a doctor’s office, and somebody will say you’re not dancing, like I’m supposed to dance anywhere that I am. So yes, I’m sure I’ll dance.”

De Generes is excited about her expanded variety show format. “This is something I’ve wanted to do. I grew up watching, you know, “Rowan and Martin’s Comedy Hour” and Carol Burnett, and Sonny and Cher, and Donny and Marie. I loved those shows. So it’s just something I’ve always been drawn to, and it kind of has something for everybody. And now it seems like a lot of people are doing it, and who’s to say why anything works when one person does it and [it’s the] same exact format, and it doesn’t work for somebody else? I really couldn’t tell you, but we’ve been fortunate that whatever we’re doing is working, so I’m very grateful for that, and I have fun doing it. It’s just something different to do than my show every single day.”