2012 Vancouver Comedy Fest names

A lot of people asked me what was happening with the Vancouver Comedy Fest (aka Global ComedyFest, aka Some Other Generic Sponsorship Name I Can't Recall). It usually happened in September. Didn't happen this year. That's because it's been moved up, for reasons unknown to me, to February. Sounds good. September's too busy with tons of stuff.

If you haven't heard, they recently announced a few names for the festival, which will take place Feb. 16-26. The biggest one is Betty White, who'll be 90 by the time her show at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts rolls around on Feb. 18. Festival head honcho Will Davis loves these types of non-performing shows, and so do the people. Carol Burnett started it here with a Q&A followed by Steve Martin. White has had one helluva career and is hotter than she's ever been right now. I recently saw her killing it in Bridesmaids and she's hosted Saturday Night Live in the past year, too. Think of all she's done: my first memory of her is from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I also remember her from Password, hosted by her late husband Allen Ludden. Then there was The Golden Girls, which I never got into but the show was inexplicably popular. And now she's on a sitcom called Hot in Cleveland, which is appropriate because she's hot everywhere.

The other two names announced for the festival are ones I thought might have over-saturated the market. Margaret Cho plays here (seemingly) once a year (although now that I look it up, I see she was last here in August of 2010). I first saw her live at Bumbershoot Lord knows how many years ago. That's when she was still a rising young alt-comic in the company of David Cross and Patton Oswalt and the like. Now she's a freakin' brand. She'll be playing the Centre the next night, Feb. 19.

And Jeremy Hotz, too, has been here more times than I can count. (Just checked: last time he was here was March 2010). He's always naturally funny and does great crowd work so even if he doesn't change his act, you'll be laughing even though you've seen him before. He's playing Lafflines in New West on Feb. 16, 17 and 18.

Can't wait to hear more names announced in the coming months. There'll be some good ones, some bad ones, and some you've never heard of who may fall under either category.

I also see that the festival has something to do with the surprise appearance of Doug Benson at the Comedy MIX this Thursday night, and that's a great thing indeed. Check him out. One night only.