If you try to pitch a joke to comedy specialists Sal and Guy Richards, they’ll chuckle. Then, they’ll tell you to keep your day job. Yet, Guy Richards admits, the audience provides the comedians' their greatest inspiration. Their own New York Italian-American family and yours -- whatever the genealogy -- will be the fodder for their fun. And they say they wouldn’t trade that bond with the audience -- during the show and after -- for all the pizza in Pisa.

“We become part of our audience,’’ says Richards, who will perform with his father, Sal, in “Like Father, Like Son,’’ a music and comedy act, at Lorenzo’s Restaurant, Bar and Cabaret in the Hilton Garden Inn, Bloomfield, on Jan. 18. “We can tell,’’ Guy Richards says, explaining his swift read of the audience, which often translates into a hysteria that can turn the show in any direction at any time. “Just the way they dress; the way they sit. We know exactly where to go. I wish I could pick Lotto numbers like that.’’