After the Simpsons movie, I drove down to Dundas Square for the Just For Laughs street festival.

I wanted to go to see Russell Peters, because people kept saying that he is pretty funny, that he has a lot of racial jokes and is Canadian/Torontonian. With a combination like that, I figured I could relate to his humor and so he would actually be funny! The only problem was that he went on at 7:15PM and I didn’t leave Kelsey’s until 7. But fortunately for me, the traffic on the DVP wasn’t too bad and I was able to park and get to the square by about 7:30. However, seeing Russell Peters was another matter, as the square and Yonge street was packed. I couldn’t really navigate close enough to get a consistent glimpse of him.

I was also somewhat disappointed that he finished maybe 10 minutes after I got there, and the Doo Wops came on stage. Although, a lot of people left and I was able to move up, plus they were reasonably interesting. They rewrote songs to be funny, in a Weird Al style, but the crowd didn’t appreciate them even though I thought it was more clever and hard to do than anything Russell Peters said. That goes to show how hype brainwashes people. Anyways, 20 minutes later, Peters came back on and did another 20 minute set. I honestly did not think he was that funny. There were a couple of times where he set things up well and were worth a laugh, but there were no belly-busting, laugh-till-you’re crying moments. It wasn’t worth being part of a large crowd on a sweaty day.

After the crowd dispersed, I found Nelson and Ben and we stayed around for a bit more. There was a pyrotechnic act next that shot fire, and sprayed foam into the air from a fire engine. I don’t know why that was part of the festival as it wasn’t “comedic” and more like buskers. There were also other buskers walking around, some on stilts, some on their own two feet, and some on their stalks like the two mushrooms we saw causing trouble. After grabbing some food at Fran’s across from Massey Hall, we arrived back at Dundas Square in time to see the end of Circus Orange’s The Aviator. As you can see from the picture, it wasn’t really comedic either, but involved lots of fire+works and smoke.

The best part occurred while we hanging around afterwards deciding what to do. The green Just For Laughs mascot actually showed up! I wonder where he was the whole time the festival was actually on.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: comedy, streetfestivals, toronto