Colin Lamb doesn't play a lot of comedy clubs, but he should. His songs are hilarious, truly original, and he performs them with a commitment that makes them even funnier. They're also very naughty. Lamb brought his guitar into the studio and serenaded me throughout the hour, maintaining creepy eye contact the whole time.
Brad Upton has been entertaining audiences for 33 years. And he still kills! The Seattle-area comic talks about the best way to deal with hecklers, how standup and teaching 10-year-olds are intertwined, playing mind games in athletic and comedy competitions, and dishes the dirt on the likes of Rodney Dangerfield, Kenny Rogers, Glen Campbell, Smokey Robinson, and George Jones.
Joel Plaskett went from a power pop rocker with his band Halifax-based band, Thrush Hermit, in the '90s to a "nationally adored" singer-songwriter. In this episode, we talk about me fake-kissing his wife in university, Jimi Hendrix's high school career, getting heckled on Twitter, and John Candy's van. And, of course, Anne Murray.
Camilo the Magician is... you'll never guess... a magician! He's also our first guest with a pop song written in his honour. It's a good one, too, by the band Said the Whale. In this episode, Camilo Dominguez (that's his given name) talks about growing up in Bogota before moving to Victoria at the age of 15, scaring religious old ladies on airplanes, and even performs a card trick for me. Nothing like magic on a podcast!
James Kennedy burst onto the Vancouver standup scene and became a headliner in short order after spending most of his 20s in a band. He's never met a competition – be it in comedy or music – that he hasn't conquered. Not bad for a kid who never finished high school. Oh, and he also loves monkeys.
Harris Anderson and I first met sharing a bowl of alcohol. Now he's in studio talking about his comedy and music. He also talks about his love of Jonathan Winters and Victor Borge, quotes Milton's Paradise Lost, says why jazz makes him nervous, and expresses his love of dogs.
Barry Crimmins... the man... the legend. The great political satirist joins us despite having a love-hate relationship with podcasts. Despite industrial work being done right outside his hotel room window, we manage to talk for an hour about the best and worst US president of his lifetime, the problem with Hillary, his experience on Air America (or Err America, as he calls it), and the early days of comedy in Boston.
Fred Ewanuick teaches me how to pronounce his name and then we get down to business. The professional pretender talks about his time as a bad theatre student, performing improv in his mom's coffee shop, his role as Hank on Corner Gas, and his regrets about his starring turn on Dan For Mayor.
Lori Gibbs returns after a 5-year absence. Or I return to her hotel room, is more like it. She talks about getting hit on in comedy clubs, how she got her nickname "the human antidepressant," her radio career, being a keynote speaker, the art of crafting, and we settle, once and for all, who has the bigger head.
Part two of our 2016 highlights, with guests Steve Bays, Graeme Duffy, Jy Harris, Ed Hill, Chris James, Richard Lett, Brett Martin, Efthimios Nasiopoulos, Scott Patey, Nancy Robertson, Ari Shaffir, and Sam Tonning.
We look back at highlights from our shows in 2016. Clips from guests Dino Archie, Byron Bertram, Jason Bryden, Sophie Buddle, Sara Bynoe, Jeff Cooper, Grahaeme Cowie, Ivan Decker, Glen Foster, Jessica Holmes, Caitlin Howden, Paul Hooper, Shauna Johannesen, Sean Kent, Julie Kim, Simon King, Dave Merheje, Camille Mitchell, Tim Nutt, Rob Pue, and Mike Storck.
Harry Doupe returns to rehash 2016. We go over the top comedy specials of the year, comedy deaths, the Human Rights Tribunal, game shows, SNL, and Harry gives us a taste of the book he's been working on since the 1980s.
Nancy Robertson may be best known for her role as Wanda on the hit Corner Gas, but she's so much more. We talk about her start in acting, learning from one of the finest cowboy thespians in the business, and her formative years in improvisation. We also get into her love of British series, her dislike of her new slow cooker, and classic movies I've never seen.
Sam Tonning tells dirty jokes at night, but by day he's a mild-mannered paper-pusher for The Man. In this, his first episode with us, he talks about his unabashed and unironic love of Phil Collins, Ted Nugent, Jay Leno, and Dennis Miller. We also discuss TV talk show sidekicks, moustaches, and a whole lot more.
Scott Patey is an actor, improviser and comedian. I think I got the order right. He hails from the border town of Lloydminster, which fascinates me. He explains how it works. We also talk about how his hockey career was cut short by a breakup, his funny brother, portraying Donald Trump, working with celebrities, I take him on in a best-of-five battle of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and he promises to take me to New York when he hosts Saturday Night Live.
Graeme Duffy returns to talk about his very public – and swift! – engagement. He tells of how he proposed to his girlfriend four months after starting to date in front of 1100 people at the Vogue Theatre. He also talks about getting bullied in Scotland, the busy local movie and TV scene, cruising the Baltic Sea, and his love of moustaches, tattoos and Kanye West.
Larry Miller has done it all. He was one of Carson's favourites on the old Tonight Show and has been a ton of movies and TV classics. And he's still going strong, performing stand-up whenever he can, hosting a podcast, Tweeting, FB'ing, blogging and acting in films. We talk about it all and go a little longer than usual in the process. And could have gone on a lot longer. But we'll save that for another episode.
Steve Bays returns, this time with girlfriend and actor Siobhan Williams in tow. To make things even, I brought my brother-in-law along. I do my best to get Bays to do one last tour with his band Hot Hot Heat, who has a new album out. We also talk about lyrics, ego, and emo. And we tie it all together with comedy.
Sean Kent lives in the heart of Texas, if Austin is considered the heart. I have no idea. It is the liberal oasis, I know that. And that fits, because Kent is a liberal through and through. In this episode, we talk a little bit about the Norman Conquest and a lot about Donald Trump. And he recounts what it's like to be thrown out of a Trump rally.
Sophie Buddle makes her debut on What's So Funny? The 22-year-old is making waves in the standup world. She's already a veteran of the Just For Laughs gala and hip Los Angeles comedy shows. She explains how she got started at the tender age of 15, talks about a photo shoot that wasn't a lot of fun, hobnobbing at an LA Emmy party, and explains why Woody Allen is innocent.
Efthimios Nasiopoulos gamely stepped up at the last minute when our scheduled guest fell ill. And only a week after he moved to Vancouver from Toronto, to boot! The biggest name in comedy talks about glaciers in Vancouver, two broken engagements, serving people summonses, retiring undefeated in boxing, and fudge.
Brett Martin returns to the What's So Funny? studio and we talk running for mayor and writing for a major daily newspaper both without graduating from high school. We also discuss talk shows and he takes the Trivial Pursuit challenge.
Jason Bryden left Vancouver for good 3.5 years ago. He's Toronto through and through now, but we still love him. In this episode, he talks about quitting comedy, quitting theatre, quitting social media, and starting a new podcast (In the Dark with Jason Bryden). He may or may not have been wearing an adult diaper during the recording.
Tim Nutt manages to headline all over this great land and regularly perform galas at festivals and on TV all from his mountain home in the comedy hotbed of West Kelowna. He tells us how he ended up there after starting his career in 1993 in Vancouver, and the problem with open mics, human rights commissions, and parenting today.
Jy Harris returns after a six year absence a new man. Manic on stage, he's found peace in his personal life. Or at least is on a never-ending quest for it. He meditates, is vegan, reads new-age books, and experiments with microdoses of psychedelics. He's feeling the Bern. We also talk about his Jerry Springer-like upbringing and his real-life Jerry Springer experience. Julian Angel-Joynt also performs a slam poem for us that's pretty damn cool.
Simon King returns! Mighty Mouth is back in studio after a 7.5-year absence. We talk about England, comedy intermissions, protest comedy, Trump, funny voices, political correctness, and WWI.
Jeff Cooper and Grahaeme Cowie have known each other since high school, where they would meet by the smoking doors and swap their doodles. Today they run a small animation studio called Smoking Doors and are about to unleash on the world a cartoon series called Impotents (not its homonym Impotence), a show featuring four regular super buddies: Jesus, Buddha, Ganesh and Artemis.
Part 2 of our 2015 highlights with guests Paul Anthony, Janice Bannister, Ian Boothby, Daniel Chai, Garrett Clark, Chad Daniels, Tanyalee Davis, David Dedrick, Fatima Dhowre, Robyn Daye Edwards, Chip Ellis, Mark Friebe, Goldie Hoffman, Jesse Joyce, Robert Kelly, Kathleen McGee, Aaron Read, Dylan Rhymer, Jacob Samuel, Erica Sigurdson, Bobby Slayton, Sheila Sharma, and Ron Vaudry.
Remember 2015? Ah, it was a good year. Here's part 1 of a 2-part highlight show featuring clips from all our 2015 shows. Guests are Dino Archie, Diana Bang, Steve Bays, Matt Bilinski, Andy Canete, Graham Chittenden, Ewan Currie, Kate Davis, Ryan Hamilton, Mark B. Hughes, Ron Josol, Jesse Joyce, Jason Kryska, Sean Lecomber, Lauren McGibbon, Craig Northey, Dan Quinn, Melanie Rose, Marcus Ryan, and Glenn Wool.
Glen Foster is one of the founding fathers of Canadian standup. In 1982, he voyaged west with a ragtag bunch of comedians from Toronto's Yuk Yuk's and brought laughs to our shores. We talk about that, growing older, and, as always with Foster, politics. I work my hardest to convince him that our dear leader, Justin Trudeau, is doing good work.
