We caught the last fifteen minutes of Just For Pitching… we usta accidentally call it “Pitching It.” Now they’ve changed the name of it and they’re billing it as “Pitch ’til Your Sides Split: TV series pitch session.” There were only three pitches scheduled. That guy from Banff Television with the clipboard wasn’t running it… is he not involved this year? Steve Patterson (comedian from Toronto) emceed it this time.
We got there in time to see “NNN News,” one of three sitcoms pitched at the afternoon session. We didn’t take any notes, but we do know that Omnipop’s Bruce Smith was one of the pitchers. And the pitchees were the usual suspects– execs from Canadian and (maybe) US television. The trailer was slick, no doubt about that. But the verdict from one of the suits was that it skewed too old (as least for his network) and the others were just confused. But, of course, they each took turns explaining exactly why they were confused– using exquisitely opaque ExecSpeak! We theorize that heavily compensated television executives endeavor to demonstrate their salary-worthiness by speaking. Words– spoken words– are their most important product! And you thought it was television programming! No, no! Their most important product is their artfully spun web of ponderous speech– decorated with delightfully arcane catchphrases and buzzwords that serve as shortcuts to their main points. It’s totally modular! They build giant delicate word castles of lacey, fluffy nothingness! They hold forth for a good five minutes on this pilot or that sitcom project– that’s 300 seconds– when the elusive word they search for– “No.”– takes only about three-hundredths of a second. That’s a ratio of about a thousand to one! Such waste! We suspect that somewhere, deep in their contracts, they’re paid by the word. They are each a modern Charles Dickens!
We missed today’s Pitch ’til Your Sides Split. Darn. We need a refresher course in ExecSpeak. (We haven’t heard anyone use the word, “interstitial” in years!)
Who knew Donald Glover ("Troy on NBC's "Community") is adept at rapping?
Andy Kindler’s State of the Industry Address was scheduled for 4:30! Huh? No coffee? No danish? No spread of gooey chocolate chip cookies and sugary soda pop? And why so late? It’s Friday evening and a lot of people are getting ready for their Friday 7:30 shows! This kind of timing tends to suppress attendance. It was held upstairs. Or was it downstairs? The Hyatt’s layout is not… linear. Rather, it is an architectural funhouse with two elevator banks that don’t agree on anything and secret passages and salons and levels and… a shopping mall! (Press the wrong button and you’re launched into a brightly-lit, late 20th century, atrium shopping mall!)
We got to the address in time to catch Harland Williams‘ wacky intro. (Williams is a surrealist!) We’ve seen Kindler’s address ten times now. And this one was not his best. It never got rolling… it lacked momentum. Without getting into the particulars, there was only giant applause break. It’s usually a non-stop, rollicking roller coaster affair– in which even the valleys are funny. This time, it was… even.
Specifically: He didn’t get to Last Comic Standing quickly enough! LCS was the giant, 1,000-lb. elephant in the room. Right? Andy Kindler, Alterna-God, goes over to The Dark Side of Network Television. Isn’t that the theme this year? Admit it: When you heard, “Andy’s going to be a judge on Last Comic Standing,” didn’t you think, “Hey… maybe LCS might be good this year!” and then, “Geez… I wonder how he’s going to handle this in the State of the Industry Address?”
Well… we did, at least.
He got to it. But he took his time getting to it. And when he got there, he didn’t hit it hard enough.
Man, that Classic Comedy Radio bit was Classic Comedy! Kindler mocked the fast-talking patter of hacky radio deejays but inserted sly and often vicious references to Lisa Lampinelli, Wayne Cotter and Etta May.
Since we were planning to hover around the Vos/McFarlane juggernaut all night (starting with a 5:45 shuttle call for the 7:00 Gala show hosted by Cheech & Chong), we hadda leave before Kindler go to the closer– his “Jay Leno material.” (What’s a SOTI Address without some Leno bashing?) Now hear this: It may have appeared that we were walking out in protest– some sort of statement in solidarity of Team Leno– but we assure one and all that was not the case… it was a simple matter of scheduling!
We’re still puzzled as to why they videotape the address every year. It doesn’t seem to be up online. Is it up on iTunes? Is it going to be released in a boxed set some day? (Physical media… so last century!) It has a shelf life– pretty soon references to some of Kindler’s favorite targets are going to evoke not belly laughs but momentary confusion as the celebrities slip out of the public consciousness. We say: Put them all up online! Let us all have at it! There’s gold in them thar hills of snark!
There are bootleg audio copies floating around out there. In this day and age, it’s best to get out in front of that and offer it via digital download!
On the left: Ben Roy (New Faces) On the right: Fortune Feimster (New Faces, Last Comic Standing)
It was fascinating hanging out in the narrow hallway at the Theatre St. Denis during the aforementioned gala. It’s a show… a big show. And it’s a television taping, too! So it’s controlled chaos– lots of clipboard-toting gals and guys and camera/sound crews crabwalking past while clumps of comics and their “crews” huddle throughout the warren of dressing rooms. At each end, plasma screens display the program and each performer is greeted with applause upon returning to the backstage area.
McFarlane was scheduled for the middle of the lineup that included Jay Malone, Jim Jeffries, Noel Fielding, Bill Burr, Joey Elias, Chris Hardwick, Pete Johanssen and Lavell Crawford. Cheech & Chong’s bits were interspersed throughout.
We don’t review comics. But MAN is that Bill Burr in some kindofa zone these days! He makes us howl! He dug himself a hole (by his own admission) with the somewhat judgemental gala crowd by starting off with a bit about how skeptical he is that “there’s never an excuse to hit a woman.” (“Really? Really? Never? I can think of seventeen!”) But he powered through and killed mightily with a lengthy bit about his girlfriend “rescuing” a pit bull. It’s so funny, it makes one fear that the laughing muscles may have sustained permanent damage.
In the many backstages we’ve hung out in this year, there seems to be a looseness… less of a militaristic, tightly-controlled striving for a precision, down-to-the-minute production. It seems to be left up to the comics as to how and when the show might proceed. It’s relaxing! (Of course, the Gala, since it’s taped for airing on Canadian television, is, by necessity, scripted and timed. But even so, it didn’t seem very tense back there. For a TV taping, it was pretty laid back.)
If only the audiences were similarly laid back. We’ve seen a few instances of audiences being judgemental, stiff, a little too quick to jump on a comic after hearing only a setup or a premise. That is soooo 1996! People, you’re at a comedy festival! Give the joke a chance… we can pretty much guarantee you it’s going to be funny once we all arrive at the punchline! We can guarantee you (if that is what you require) that you’re not going to be offended. And, if you are offended, we would (not so) respectfully request that you keep your trap shut and hide your discontent! (No booing, please. It’s the eventual manifestation of the premise police and the political correctness disease that swept the continent over the past decade and a half– people feeling entitled to voice their displeasure… at a comedy show! And too many of these goofs are offended at the setup! Huh? Are these people ADD, perhaps? Unable to wait until the rest of the gag is unspooled before they get all judgemental? It’s rude, it’s stupid, it’s unwanted.)
The Male Half consented to man the video camera and tail McFarlane as she rustled her tot during the shuttle ride, straightened out a false eyelash controversy down in makeup and did the curtain call. We’re sure some of the footage will be usable.
Kristeen Von Hagen and Jo-Anna Downey at the Funny Or Die party
We hit Ernie Butler’s Comedy Nest on the other end of town, at the Pepsi Center (the old Forum), for the Comedy Night in Canada show. (Featured were Jo-Anna Downey, Daniel Tirado, Eddie King, Graham Clark, Pete Johanssen, McFarlane, The Doo Wops) It was bittersweet– we’ve performed at the Nest on two occasions in the past, but this was the first time we’d set foot in the joint since the passing of Butler. (We last saw him at the ’07 JFL, just weeks before he succumbed to cancer.)
Rich Vos and The Male Half at the Funny Or Die party
We stopped back to the Hyatt to mix up a batch of Manhattans and chill on some modern lobby furniture. We engaged the occasional passing comic (“Hey! You’re Greg Hahn!” “As a matter of fact, I am!”) and share networking tips with Kevin Meany— “You look like you’ve put on weight,” Meany says, then, “I’m going to say that to everyone!” Yes, Kevin… that’s an idea that so crazy, it just might work.
Then it was off to hang backstage at the Nasty Show. It’s a raucous and densely packed, subterranean bunker that doubles as a green room– Greg Giraldo (host), Jimmy Carr, Jim Norton, Rich Vos, Tiffany Haddish and Andrew Kennedy are present as the Club Soda crowd upstairs is treated to nastiness. Agents, managers, publicists and others drift in and out. It’s a party atmosphere. So much so that most don’t leave for the free-liquor/free-food bash just up the boulevard (the one hosted by Funny Or Die) until 2 AM!
A ten-minute shuffle up Boul. Ste Laurent gets us to that bash. Up four or five floors and the elevator doors open and the throbbing techno rattles the ribcage. In past years, we’ve sought refuge from the decibels in the room off to the right side. But this year, even that sanctuary was uncomfortably loud. What sense does it make to force a bunch of comedians to scream themselves hoarse… at a party… at a festival… a festival at which those same hoarse comedians will wake up on the next morning sounding like Kathleen Turner after drinking Drano… and who will then have to perform on Saturday night?
We hung… we ate a delightful smoked meat sandwich (Thanks, Funny Or Die!) and huddled and shouted for a bit before heading back to the Hyatt.
While shouting and drinking, we heard an amazing story from Jo-Anna Downey, who runs a free-wheeling and respected open mike/workout room in Toronto. Irwin Barker, the Canadian comedy legend who passed away last month at the age of 57, often performed there, says Downey. Barker is quoted as saying, “Cancer has my body but not my spirit, and I’ll continue to make jokes, not so much about cancer, but in spite of it.” In this case, Barker walked the walk– Downey says that Barker showed up the room just two weeks before his death… and did a set of new material. (Such a story is inspirational… and it might just motivate us to get off our asses and seek out a stage somewhere and break in the stuff that’s been hiding in notebooks and lurking amid the scraps of paper on the desk.)
The view's not always spectacular... check out the guy in the middle of the frame, wearing a speedo... and little else... in broad daylight.