Laugh This Week Away

This week has been a long one and next week I intend to do something a little more introspective, but I really don't have the time to do it justice this week. 

So instead, I leave you with my two all-time favourite bits. If these don't make you laugh, then I don't know what to do. Enjoy!

John Mulaney — The Salt and Pepper Diner

Bert Kreischer — The Machine

Read More

Je Suis Charlie And Why Good Satire Is So Hard

Je suis Charlie.

I am Charlie.

The events of the horrific attack in Paris have gone through the 24-hour news cycle enough times that its probably lost a sock. There have been a lot of great discussions about the freedom of speech, and freedom of press as a result. French illustrator Lucille Clerc published my favourite comic in solidarity.

https://twitter.com/LucilleClerc/status/552961721959473152/photo/1

Charlie Hebdo was a magazine that I likely would not have enjoyed. From what I understand, it was akin to a francophone MAD Magazine. But it was satire, and if we decide we want to defend free speech, that means the kind of speech that offends some people.

Being offensive does not make you funny. I can not say this enough. Sadly, like so many of our rights, when we enforce the freedom to speak, some people speak like idiots.

Bad satire – which seems to make up the majority of it these days – has given good, amazing, thought-provoking satire a bad name.

The Onion is the New York Times of satire. Seriously, you know those people who believe fake articles they see on Facebook? They come from The Onion.

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change – Obama's Presidential Campaign

Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell – The Onion's first post–9/11 piece

Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids – Do I have to spell it out?

Good satire, real satire is difficult to do. Stephen Colbert did it for eight years masterfully, and Fox News hasn't realized they've been doing it all along.

Key and Peele are another source of spectacular social commentary today. My generation's Chappelle's Show, these two comedians are masters at poking the tropes and stereotypes of race culture in America. The duo's writing ability is only heightened by their ability to believably inhabit the outrageous characters they create, leading to grounded performances from decidedly ungrounded people.

The Auction Block 

Soul Food

Alien Imposters

But if you really want to find the Abbott and Costello, the Moses and Aaron, the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of satire, look no further than:

Oh yeah, we're talking about South Park. Matt Stone and Trey Parker have carved out a piece of real estate in which they have an unprecedented amount of creative freedom. 

From the Sexual Harassment Panda to Man-Bear-Pig, Matt and Trey have never found a line they didn't want to cross. And they do so with an insane amount of intellect and intention – these are the same guys who wrote The Book of Mormon, the Broadway play that won 9 Tonys and were nominated for an Oscar (I'll repeat that) an OSCAR for the song "Blame Canada."

Note: I totally understand the style of comedy in South Park is NOT for everyone. But people who dismiss it entirely do not understand the level on which the show operates.

When South Park mercilessly mocked Family Guy for their lazy writing on a special two-parter that showed the people of the US shoving their heads into sand to avoid watching the show, the writers of King of the Hill and The Simpsons sent flowers. 

When, earlier this season, Randy Marsh revealed that he is actually Lorde and he records all his music on the toilet and auto-tunes it, Lorde said she loved the joke.

The list of episodes with original, current references that say what so many comedians fail to is endless, but something interesting happened on episode 200, which aired early in 2015.

– Some back story first, South Park has aired images of Muhammad the prophet in early episodes. During the controversy over a Swedish cartoonist drawing him in 2007, Comedy Central censored any images of Muhammad in South Park's reruns.

Matt and Trey do not like being told what to do, and aired a number of episodes that were not subtle about the danger of censorship.

Back to 200, the plot of the episode is that every single celebrity made fun of in South Park's history decides to file a class-action lawsuit against the town of South Park. Everyone is there, Tom Cruise, Bill Cosby, Hillary Clinton, the whole gang. 

Even Muhammad.

Comedy Central demanded any depiction of Muhammad be censored from the episode and Matt and Trey didn't really have a choice, but they handled it in true South Park fashion. Watch the video below to see what good satire looks like.

THAT is what satire is supposed to do. 

Fun fact for you all, Comedy Central is even censoring the episode on the DVD release, so that episode will never run uncensored again.

Read More

Royal Canadian House of Cards

I love live theatre! The immediacy. The energy. The heavy breathing of that big guy taking up the arm rest next to me. All of it.

And last night I had the chance to see Proud by Michael Healey, put on by Theatre Projects Manitoba.

It takes place in a fictional future where Stephen Harper's party has won a colossal majority government in Canada. Harper, along with his chief of staff, Cary Baines, attempt to game the system with the help of a new, feisty MP named Jisbella Lyth.


As my title suggests, this Parliamentary parody was a something of a cross between the CBC's well-regarded but mostly-forgotten Royal Canadian Air Farce and the recent Netflix political drama House of Cards.

It is NOT easy to make Canadian politics interesting. I loved Air Farce and The Rick Mercer Report but it was their chemistry and sarcasm that interested me, not the MPs or MLAs.



All that being said, Proud, was a hilarious look into the 'what-might-have-been' of Canadian politics.

The Prime Minister, imitated exceptionally by Ross McMillan, becomes a parody of himself. Over the course of the play, he reveals that he really doesn't care about the things he says he cares about. In reality, every step he's taken to getting where he is has really been about making the country just a little bit more self-sufficient.
He's the Frank Underwood in this story, without the chilling soliloquies or southern drawl. Or the handsome features. Or the intimidating thousand-yard stare.

OK, maybe he's more like like if Frank Underwood were played my Mike Meyers.

The congressional conundrum causes a catastrophe for the Conservative cabinet captain. Cue Jisbella Lyth, played to the rafters by Daria Puttaert.

She has run and won in her riding by being nothing more than a warm body, and her entrance to the play (busting into the Prime Minister's Office asking if anyone has a condom) sets her character up for the rest of the night.

Much of Proud's comedy comes from Lyth's lack of filter, her sex drive, or the combination of the two. My only real gripe with the performance was that too many of her moments were overly excited for the space she was working in. Imagine watching Chris Farley do King Lear.

“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”

I had a great experience this last summer at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. I went to as many shows as I was able, all-in-all about a dozen.
I am always drawn to comedic plays over drama, so Proud had me a bit nervous. That being said, I think Proud did as good a job as I've seen balancing the "drama" of the political backdrop, with the absurdity of the personalities involved in the plot.

I can't say this play had any sort of profound impact on me. It was certainly a fun look at a form of politics that I'm sure don't make up a huge percentage of the real life political landscape.

Something that added to my experience was the talkback session after. The director and actors hung out for 20 minutes and answered questions from the audience. Being a huge comedy nerd, it was a nice change to hear the actors discuss mechanics of dramatic acting opposed to comedic performance.

If for some reason I wanted to sum up all my feelings about the night in one concise .gif it would be:

Read More