It seems like just yesterday that Jim Breuer was bleating away as Goat Boy and giving us the best Joe Pesci impression of all time on "Saturday Night Live."

Not to mention AC/DC's Brian Johnson doing the "Hokey Pokey."

But in fast-track pop culture terms, an entire era has come and gone in the years since.

Breuer was not ready for prime time on "SNL" from 1995 to 1998 - which means a big chunk of his audience Tuesday night in Illinois State University's Braden Auditorium still would have been in their single digits around that time.

"Yeah," says Breuer, who hit the big 4-0 earlier this year. "They come up to me now - 21-year-olds with that 'fight-the-system' look - and say, 'hey, I saw you as Goat Boy when I was 12.' That startles me."

But at least some of them were allowed to stay up late enough to see him at an impressionable age.

And, better yet, they remember the antics of not only Goat Boy (host of the fictional MTV show, "Hey, Remember the '80s?"), but also all the other Breuer bits - among them, Glen Henderson, older sibling to Chris Kattan's Todd Henderson in the memorable "Goth Talk" sketches.

Breuer, who does limited college dates each year, finds that the younger the audience, "the more honest they are." College-age fans, he adds, are "the most honest - they're the ones who sit down and listen with the most intensity."

Thanks to the various stages of his career, the East Coast native (Nassau County, N.Y.) has cultivated a following that breaks down along diverse lines.

There's the obvious "SNL" fan base, which is probably the largest. There's also the devoted following for the 1998 cult film that came at the end of his "SNL" period, Dave Chappelle's stoner comedy, "Half Baked," for which Breuer received second billing as Brian, the most strung-out of the film's many strung-out potheads.

Then there's the audience he cultivated via his healthy radio tenure, beginning with his guest gigs with Howard Stern and on "The Opie and Anthony Show."

That career is now at an all-time peak, courtesy his Sirius Satellite Radio Channel series, "Breuer Unleashed," heard every weekday.

Meanwhile, there's also the fan base for his stand-up career, which continues apace.

When Breuer joined "SNL" in 1995, he was deep into his late 20s, which, he says was a very good thing.

"If I had only been in my early 20s, I never would have lived for you to be able to see me now," he says, referencing the number of early burnouts he's witnessed both in and out of the "SNL" fold.

For the three seasons he toiled live from Rockefeller Center every Saturday night, "the best part was watching all the stars that came through the revolving door."

Never mind, he adds, that only a tiny fraction of them lived up to their images.

"Around 5 percent," he says. "The rest of them were miserable and sad individuals. Why anyone with way too much money would be that way, I don't know."

Nevertheless, Breuer says he had a great time mingling with a number of his heroes, from rockers Metallica to the night that Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro turned up in person to witness Breuer's Pesci impression opposite fellow "SNL" player Colin Quinn's De Niro.

"The funny thing is, I'm still a fan, even though I work in the industry," he says.

When Breuer found himself doing Pesci opposite the real Pesci, with the real De Niro looking on, reality went out the window.

"It was an out-of-body experience," he recalls. "Very surreal. The hardest thing to do was to focus on the moment rather then get caught in the feeling of 'is this really happening … should I really be here'?"

Or how about that time that another of Breuer's celebrated bits - AC/DC's Brian Johnson doing the "Hokey Pokey" - wound up in a life-imitates-art conundrum?

This past summer, Breuer found himself on stage as Johnson, opposite the for-real Johnson, doing that very same "Hokey Pokey" (not to mention renditions of "Back in Black" and "Hey, Hey, Who Phoned the Law?").

"It was very weird, because when I was a kid I would get this vision in my head that I would actually do that someday," Breuer continues.

When fantasy becomes reality in that way, his head spins.

The worse-case scenario, he confesses, is when he meets the true heroes of his life: professional ball players, particularly the Mets, of whom he is rabid fan.

"With ball players, I fail horrendously," he says. "I just talk stupid around them."

Among the "SNL" players of the Breuer era, he names Tracy Morgan, who joined the show around the same time, as his most compatible.

His top three "SNL" moments?

The Pesci-De Niro visit, of course.

The time Alec Baldwin did De Niro opposite Breuer's Pesci.

Above all, though, he remembers the week when then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the guest host.

"As cast members, we had to compete against each other all the time. You'd always go into the show wondering, 'Am I gonna make it on this week?'"

Adding to the angst was the fact that the guest hosts often would request who among the players they wanted to work with in a sketch.

"When Mayor Giuliani was on the show, that was a big deal," he says. "And the first thing he said is, 'I won't do it unless I get to appear with Jim on 'The Joe Pesci Show.'

"The mayor said, 'I want to work with Jim Breuer.' Oh my god."

Although the years since his "SNL" gig haven't been quite so high-profile, Breuer has been busy on all those diverse career levels. He's done everything from hosting the 2006-7 season of VH1's "Web Junk 20" to providing a voice for the animated science fiction movie, "Titan A.E."

Deep into his third year on the "Breuer Unleashed" daily radio grind, he confesses, "For the couple of years it was great, but now I'm getting bored with it. I want to get back out doing stand-up again."

With his current tour, he says, he's satisfying that urge.

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At a glance

What: Comedian Jim Breuer

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Illinois State University Braden Auditorium

Tickets: General, $20; ISU students, $15; pit seating, $30

Box office number: (309) 438-5444