Mar. 2: Shauna Johannesen & James Danderfer

It's Oscar night so we have two filmmakers in studio with us. Last night, Shauna Johannesen and James Danderfer, both former WSF? guests on their own, premiered their 15-minute short film at the Crazy8s Gala at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. Over 1000 people roared their approval for Bedbugs: A Musical Love Story. I loved it. So fun and funny and bright.

James Danderfer conceived it, Shauna Johannesen birthed (wrote) it, James composed the music, Shauna starred in it, and they both produced it. (It also co-starred 3-time What's So Funny? guest Toby Hargrave.) You might know Shauna as the "Shut the front door!" reporter on the A&W commercials; James, of course, is a jazz clarinetist extraordinaire with many CDs to his name.

We'll get all the details tonight about the Crazy8s process, what it's like working together as husband and wife, and where they go from here. Maybe we'll see them at the Oscars one day.

Tune in tonight to CFRO, Vancouver Co-op radio, 100.5 FM at 11pm to midnight. If you're out of earshot, you can always livestream us at coopradio.org.

Apr. 10: The Comedy Round-Table Reconvenes

It's been a while since we did a Comedy Round-Table. So when Dino Archie cancelled for the second time in about a month, I decided to reconvene it. And all four corners of the round table will be represented with four quality panelists: What's So Funny? first-timer Chuck Byrn, last week's guest Steve Bays, new Haligonian Dylan Rhymer, and the pneunomic (but not contagious, he assures me) Toby Hargrave.

(Photos, from left: Chuck Byrn, Steve Bays, Dylan Rhymer, Toby Hargrave)

What's on the agenda, you ask? We'll discuss as many of the following topics as time will allow: the notion of Vancouver as No Fun City, superstitions and rituals, over-rated comedy legends and under-rated hacks, comedy as entertainment vs art, and favourite comedy podcasts.

It should be a rollicking good time. I'll be there; will you? Tune in tonight at 11.

The world famous Improv

Hollywood Blvd. is jumping on a Saturday night. Everyone's out taking photos of stars' names printed on the sidewalk (isn't that going to be an amazing slide show for their neighbours?! "Look, there's the name of John Travolta! There's the name of Red Skelton!" I could write those names down on a piece of paper and get the same effect. They're just names, people!) Traffic is backed up is backed all the way down past the Jimmy Kimmel Live studio and Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

I hail a cab. I'm going to the world famous Improv comedy club where all the greats have played for decades. "The Improv on Melrose," I instruct my cabbie. He pauses.

"What's the cross street?"

"I don't know. It's the Improv. On Melrose? You don't know where that is?"

He asks if we can know how to use his GPS system so we type in Improv but it doesn't show up. So we hop out of the cab and ask a doorman standing by if he knows the cross street. "Fairfax," he confidently tells us. Perfect. So we hop back in the waiting cab and he takes us to Melrose and Fairfax. We're dropped off and look around. Nothing. So we start walking. Way ahead in the distance we see some green neon and what looks like a white playbill underneath, but we can't make out what it says. Still, it's all we've got. After a few blocks, we can read the sign and that's it. We finally arrive.

So much for world famous.

Over the years I've heard lots of bad things about L.A. comics but this was my first time seeing live comedy here. And I've got to say if tonight was any indication, L.A.'s got some good ones. I can't remember all the names of who I saw, but I'll start with Alex Nussbaum. Hilarious. I reviewed him at Yuk Yuk's four years ago, raving about him. And he hasn't lost a step. Still really funny. And, yes, sure, he's from Toronto, but I do believe he lives in L.A. now.

Then there was Toby Hargrave, a multiple-time guest on What's So Funny? Sure, he's a former Edmontonian who still lives in Vancouver, but he slayed 'em at the Improv just as he does all over Canada.

The headliner for the evening was Lachlan Patterson, who destroyed. It was a really strong set from Lachlan (another multiple-time guest on WSF?), who is just getting funnier and funnier. He was a celebrity there, with people coming up to tell him how great he was and to buy an autographed copy of his new CD, Jokes to Make Love To. Who knew?! The guy's going to be a star. I should have been nicer to him all these years when I was swatting away his lazy shit in basketball every Sunday night.

So I travel however many miles to La La Land to see comedy and it's old home week. Hell, even Stargate Universe's Adam Brody, as played by multiple-time WSF? guest Peter Kelamis, was in the crowd supporting his homeboys.

There were some Americans on the bill, too. I didn't catch all their names, but two of them I've seen for years and years: The Sklar Brothers. It was great seeing them live after all this time. I'm a sucker for a comedy team just because they're so rare. But I'd like them anyway.

It was a solid evening of laughs. If all L.A. comics are this good, I can't wait to see more. Just don't let them tell you the place is world famous.

Jon Reep at Lafflines

I took the Canada Line and then the SkyTrain all the way out to New West tonight to see Last Comic Standing winner Jon Reep. An hour and five minutes later, I was there. So I missed Kevin Foxx's set, unfortunately. Foxx is one of my favourite Vancouver comics of all time and I haven't seen him in a while. When I walked in, Toby Hargrave was on stage, killing before a large and appreciative crowd. I've figured out one positive to not seeing as much local comedy as I used to, and it's this: Now when I see a local, I don't know their routines by heart and I wasn't there when they were working out new material so I get to see new stuff that's got a bit of polish to it.

Hargrave was doing some relatively edgy race material that walked the line but definitely was on the progressive side of said line. One joke that jumped out was when he was describing that white people have lots to be proud about: "We freed the slaves." That's a smart bit and would be potentially troublesome in a lesser comic's hands.

After Toby came the headliner, Jon Reep, best known for winning the penultimate season of NBC's Last Comic Standing, for which he took home 250 grand. Reep is a good ol' boy from North Carolina and lets us know it at every opportunity. Fair enough. But I had the same feeling I had when watching Trevor Boris talk about nothing but being gay. They say write what you know. I guess I just can't believe that they're both so inward looking that they don't know anything else.

But that's not fair. Neither of these acts is for me. They play to certain demographics. And they both do well. They're entertainers giving their fans what they want to hear rather than artists exploring subjects. And they both can be appreciated for what they are. Certainly there are lines in their acts that are clever and funny, even if the subject matter is uninteresting. In one chunk, Reep dissected down-home sayings like 'there's more than one way to skin a cat' ("How do you know? And stop it!") and 'shit-eating grin' ("I don't ever want to be that happy").

Between shows, I sat down with Jon for a 25-minute interview and we'll air that one tomorrow night, too (technically tonight but I haven't gone to bed yet). Sunday in either case. So that's a helluva show: Jon Reep and Tom Segura. More on that sometime tomorrow (Sunday).

I stuck around a bit for the second show. As hot as the first crowd was, the late show audience was dead. I noticed it when some great Foxx jokes got mild laughs, but it really hit home when Colleen Brow hit the stage. It was as if she was giving a speech. Rapt attention but silence. And it wasn't golden. I actually kind of enjoyed it in the way that seasoned comics love it when someone tanks. But only because I've seen Colleen get great responses with essentially the same material. And God bless her for plowing through her set without commenting on the crowd. More comics should do that.

All these years of watching comedy and I still can't figure out crowd dynamics, and why the same material that kills one night dies a miserable death the next. But it's fun to watch either way.

Still more podcasts

A bunch of new podcasts have been added to the library. Eight, to be exact. You can listen to them here, or over at ye olde Comedy Couch, or download them on iTunes, among other places. I haven't heard them in a while, but if memory serves these are all good ones. At least I had fun:

Dave Shumka from June 15, 2008:


Richard Lett from August 31, 2008:


Marcus Ryan from January 4, 2009:


Reza Peyk from January 18, 2009:


John Wing from March 8, 2009:


Toby Hargraves from March 22, 2009:


Jamie Hutchinson & Tim Rykert from March 29, 2009:


Darcy Michael from April 5, 2009:

March 22: Toby Hargrave

Happy spring. To commemorate the season, we have a comic with one of the sunniest dispositions in the business.

Back in the summer of 2005, Toby Hargrave made the big move from Edmonton to Vancouver. I know this because he did our show that very week. He was already an established headliner at that point. Two months later, he rudely won the Vancouver edition of the Great Canadian Laugh-Off. Can you imagine? Those poor Vancouver comics who toiled for years in our city, and this upstart comes in and kicks their collective asses. But it was well-deserved. Five months after that, he was a finalist in Corner Gas's Comic Genius competition, too.

Toby is still a big presence on the Vancouver comedy scene. And tonight he'll visit us again to catch up on his career.