Can you guess why this man looks so happy?

TV hounds know it’s nearly impossible to miss Doug Benson. The bearded, affable comedian has showed up on two seasons of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” as a series regular on VH1’s “Best Week Ever” and on various other shows like “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Friends” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

But Benson’s renown increasingly revolves around a little green bud. He’s a creator-writer-star of “The Marijuana-Logues” stage show (take a wild guess what it’s about) and is the main attraction in the forthcoming documentary “Super High Me,” which takes inspiration from Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me” but trades fatty McDonald’s burgers and shakes for a 30-day regimen of pot smoking.

I recently chatted via phone with the veteran L.A. stand-up in advance of his appearances at Denver’s Comedy Works tonight through Saturday about the origins of his movie (which comes out June 17) and the potential to get creatively cornered as a “pot comic.”

I understand that the idea behind “Super High Me” came from a line in your act, right?

Exactly. (For reference, here’s the joke: “You know that movie ‘Super Size Me,’ where that guy Morgan Spurlock ate McDonald’s every meal for 30 days? People actually paid money to see that. Well, if that’s a movie, I’ve got a movie! I’m going to smoke pot every day for 30 days, and it’s going to be called ‘Super High Me,’ or ‘Business As Usual’… I haven’t decided on a title yet. But guess what? McDonald’s is going to be in my movie too!”)

How did it turn into a movie?

I was at Patton Oswalt’s wedding and talking to (director) Michael Blieden, who I knew before because he’d done the Comedians of Comedy movies (one of which Benson appeared in).

And you guys got to talking about weed?

I kind of casually suggested to him turning the joke into actual movie, and he really sparked to the idea. He proceeded to talk to other people about it, one of whom was Alex Campbell, a producer-filmmaker who happened to know a lot about the medical marijuana scene. He was particularly excited to do a movie that would take place essentially in the midst of that scene, and Michael himself has said it wouldn’t have gotten made if not for Alex Campbell’s enthusiasm for it.

I’ve seen the movie and, besides being a really funny comedy, it seems to justify itself by becoming a larger discussion about drug policy in the U.S. and the medical marijuana movement.

We first and foremost set out to make a comedy. The reason I like doing jokes about pot in my stand-up is that you can say anything you want and, as long as audiences are enjoying it, no one tells not to. That, to me, was enough of a political statement, but it came together nicely that I could tell my jokes but still be in this film that is making a political statement.

What has the response to the movie been like?

Everything directed at me has been mostly positive. I really lucked out in that even reviews that don’t care for the movie tend to say I’m funny, or that my scenes are enjoyable. Some people are not buying it as a documentary maybe because there’s so much comedy in it. We tried to talk to cops and politicians who are against marijuana and no one would speak on camera about it. And of course, all the pro-pot people would talk and talk and talk…

You’re still a card-carrying medical marijuana patient, right?

Yeah, but I only got the card to make the movie. Like a lot of people in Southern California, the system was already working for me. You have a dealer, he brings you some weed. The idea of going to a doctor and carrying around a card seemed unnecessary, but once I went into that world I discovered there’s plenty of reasons to want to have a card. It’s not only to make it legal, but these dispensaries are amazing in their selection.

Do you feel like this kind of humor narrows your audience, or is there a good mix of people in there that know your TV work?

It’s actually worked to broaden my audience. Prior to me being, for lack of a better word, “outed” as a pot smoker, there was no reason for those people to seek me out — those people that smoke pot and get excited about idea of hearing humor about it. So I’m sure there’s a little bit of a crossover between audiences. But my basic audience is people that watch “Best Week Ever” and “Last Comic Standing,” where I don’t mention pot at all, or it’s alluded to only briefly.

“High Times” magazine named you Stoner of the Year in 2006. Are you ever afraid of getting pigeonholed as a “pot comic,” like Tommy Chong?

It could be scary to get pigeonholed. I was recently in an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” where I play a customs agent. Jason Segel is coming back from Amsterdam and I let him through quite easily. I’m coughing a lot, eating cereal, you know, that kind of thing. So my friend Jeff Garlin called me up and said, “Congratulations, you’ve officially been pigeonholed by Hollywood.” Just having me show up, they’ll get the joke right away. But I’ve been happy to be that go-to person. If it got the point where I was being offered a lot of ridiculous stuff, I might get worried.

For more information on Doug Benson’s shows tonight through Saturday, visit Comedy Works online.

John Wenzel is the co-editor of Reverb, editor of the Get Real Denver blog and an arts and entertainment reporter for The Denver Post. His book “Mock Stars: Indie Comedy and the Dangerously Funny” was recently published by Speck Press.

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