Ari Matti comes to us all the way from Tallinn, Estonia. Well, he was in town anyway. He's in Vancouver working on his English standup skills. Ari tells us all about the burgeoning standup scene in Estonia, his first time on stage there (where he went over an hour), failing school in Poland, and his love of pork, cabbage and potatoes.
Brent Butt is back after a six year absence. The Canadian superstar talks about apples in Saskatchewan, his experience as a bad wedding singer, practicing standup with a screwdriver, his love of language, the etymology of 'gangbusters' and 'trivia', and falling asleep with David Cassidy posters on his wall.
Barry Greenfeld has been doing comedy since Sam Tonning was one year old. Yet he remembers virtually none of his career, except the broad strokes. Play a drinking game this episode: Every time Barry forgets something, take a sip. By the end of the episode, you'll be as drunk as he was... Nah, he wasn't drunk. That's the beauty of Barry. He just seems that way all the time.
Travis Bernhardt is a magician and improviser, in that order. He started practicing magic the year this show went on the air, back in 2004. And look at him now! In this episode, he talks about starting out on the street, how magic helped with his battle with depression, and why he's a darling of the Fringe circuit.
Ivan Decker is back less than a year after his last appearance with us. This marks appearance number six for the up-and-coming standup superstar. The Jerry Seinfeld of Canada is how we're now describing him. In this extendo episode, Decker talks dinosaurs (natch), his soon-to-be-released Netflix special, opening for celebrity comics, comedy criticism, getting into comedy clubs in Los Angeles, how to get in and out of a set on stage, and more!
Shawn Farquhar is a tricky guy. That's his job! The world-renown magician pays us a second visit in between stops around the world. Actually, he'll be home in the Greater Vancouver area for a few months, thanks to two different upcoming shows. We talk about Jethro Bodine, optimism in the face of a car in his living room, and being shown a card trick by a homeless man moments before recording this episode. We also tell magician jokes!
Chris Griffin, the human being not the cartoon character, makes his What's So Funny? debut. The Calgary-born, Vancouver-residing standup comic talks about dancing topless, getting tags from Tom Papa, his online presence or lack thereof, and getting in trouble in high school.
Wes Barker magically appears for the third time on the program. Our sound is a little wonky but you'll get over it. Wes talks about doing magic without an assistant, explains the beauty of making excuses, performs both a nasty prank and a real trick, and talks about hell gigs.
Colleen Brow returns to talk about her new one-woman show and we give her a pep talk. She fills us in on her goings-on since she last was with us and we talk about her days doing standup comedy and why she eventually had her fill of performing it. Bonus: she explains to us what a uterus is!
Steve Allen and Laura Accili run the longest-running weekly comedy show in Vancouver. As of air time, 11 years and six months at the Kino Café. Guest host Sam Tonning talks to the two about memorable shows over the years, they play some clips, and talk comedy. We start the show with a snippet of "This Could Be the Start of Something Big" by the more famous Steve Allen, but our Steve Allen is still alive.
Brett Martin returns and gets the full Sam Tonning experience. Usually when the two get together, Martin is in charge at his monthly live talk show, The Brett Martin Show, where Tonning is the Ed McMahon to his Johnny Carson. But in this episode, Sammy got to talk as much as he wants because he was also in charge of pushing all the buttons.
Harris Anderson and Andrew Huzar are Sam Tonning's guests in this episode. Sam gets to yacht rock out and play comedy clips and the gang talks comedy, as you might expect. Regular host Guy MacPherson was vacating on this one.
Ross Dauk returns for his second go-around with us. We talk about how What's So Funny? created celebrities in his mind out of local comics, discuss overdone bits in standup, and debate the subjectivity/objectivity of comedy.
Dylan Rhymer helps ring in a very low-key, but special, episode number 500-ish. There have been more that have been lost to the ether over the last 14 years, but who's counting? We caught Dylan back in Vancouver after a stint in Europe and a Canadian tour so we were lucky to get him for our celebration.
Ivan Decker is winning so much he gets to come back to What's So Funny? less than a year after his last appearance. In this episode we talk about his big Juno Award win and the more recent news of his upcoming Netflix taping. It's a good time to be Ivan Decker.
Stuart Jones makes his What's So Funny? debut telling us all about his hierarchy of nerd-dom. Spoiler: Magic cards are at the top. Sam Tonning does the heavy lifting in this one, as regular host Guy MacPherson just pops up occasionally with questions and comments.
Damonde Tschritter makes his long-awaited return to the show. The veteran standup has a sports analogy for every situation. He talks about being the King of Parksville as a youth, having one degree of separation between himself and everyone, beating some big names in the Seattle International Comedy Competition, and doing ayahuasca/iowasca, which led to his one-man Fringe hit show, which led to a part in a movie.
Larke Miller makes her second guest appearance with us after an eight-year absence. The standup comic/Queen of the Monkeys tells us about her time in L.A.'s The Groundlings, guesting on Craig Ferguson, her love of space aliens and swinging on a trapeze.
Graham Clark makes his triumphant return to What's So Funny? after six long years and reveals a fact about himself heretofore only friends and family knew about. Our conversation covers such topics as the forgotten condiment, punching up, murderous ideologies, carny crime, Branson Missouri, and the value in putting yourself out there. Plus, Graham contributes two quality jokes in our New Joke/Old Joke segment.
Myq Kaplan returns to the show with a wide-ranging (and long!) conversation about robots, trees in Brooklyn, poop jokes, Jeopardy, Nickelback, language, favourites, Dimethyltryptamine, and jokes.
Fred Ewanuick has had quite a career for such a reluctant actor. Most know him as Hank on all the Corner Gases (sitcom, feature film, animated version). The Mark Ruffalo look-alike tells us about his experience on the thriller Absolute Zero, how he he's given up auditions, and we get him to cold-read some show promos. Unfortunately our station archives levels were a little "hot" so the sound isn't as good as it should be, but the episode is so fun we're hoping you forgive us.
Ryan Beil makes his triumphant return to the show after eight long years. The actor/improviser talks baseball, fish, lying to casting directors, getting roughed up by George Costanza, performing standup, fly-fishing, Fiddler on the Roof, and praying. Plus he creates a joke out of thin air!
Tom Green is a Canadian superstar. In his long career, dating back to his teenage years, he's been a standup, a rap star, a talk show host, an actor, a professional prankster, and a goofball. We talked to him about all that, plus the nature of criticism of the arts, misconceptions people have of him, and getting fired by Donald Trump.
Simon King is back! This time without regular host Guy MacPherson. Guy left the keys to the show with his trusty sidekick (audition pending) Sam Tonning and Sam invited Simon over to hang out. Together on Juno Sunday they listened to some tracks off the award-winning Ivan Decker album, as well as off Simon's own albums and they talked comedy, natch.
Mike MacDonald died on March 17. We got to know him four years ago when he dropped by the studio for an enlightening hour of conversation, which we rerun for you now. We've added some of his standup act to the beginning and end of the show to give it the full Mike MacDonald experience.
Chris Gordon returns! To the studio this time, not some random hotel lobby. And he's in full Chris Gordon mode, hawking merch with a raging boner, as you'd expect from the premier intellectual comedian of his generation. The Calgary standup is also a two-time loser at the Vancouver Comedy Awards.
Jo Dworschak has been telling stories (and lies) her whole life, which makes her the perfect host for her monthly Story Story Lie show (which doubles as a podcast). In this episode, she talks about riding her horse to the corner store to buy smokes, being a hobo, how giving a funeral speech got her into performing, taking a cross-Canada road trip with her kid, and tits.
Rod Crawford has been in and around the improv and standup scenes in Canada for 35 years making him a... legend? Sure, let's go with that. You know him best as the stunt double (1 episode) for Relic on The Beachcombers, but did you also know he starred in the Police Academy TV series? He tells us all about his life in comedy in this episode.
Kathleen McGee returns in the nick of time. The standup vet is moving back to her home town of Edmonton come spring. In this episode we talk musicals, heckling athletes, and dying pets. Plus, as added bonus, Kathleen says the C-word. No tears were shed in the making of this podcast.
Ken Lawson is always challenging me. First with "coaching" me in a losing battle against a child ping-pong champ. Second by trying to tach me improv. And in this episodes he attempts to get me to stand unassisted from a legs-crossed position. He's failed in all three endeavours. We also talk about his body shame issues, his hernia(s), and dancing topless for a living with the Comic Strippers. It's always fun when Ken is in studio.
