I went to the Toronto Comedy Combo #2 at Second City on Sunday with Nelson, Chard, Ben, Victor & some of their high school friends. It was like a McDonalds value meal of comedy as you got 6 hours spanning 3 different types of comedy for a cheap $5. The catch being that you have to be there by noon, and it was 6 hours long!

Thinking from a Chinese perspective, I was like: “Wow, 6 hours for $5 eh? That’s a good deal,” but in the end it wasn’t that great. First, the chairs suck and the 6/7 of us were cramped into a small space without much moving room. Second, the air condition was on really high and there was no ambient heat from lights or what no. Thirdly, and I guess most importantly, you get what you pay for. In this case, it wasn’t processed food but questionable selection.

The first 2 hours consisted of sketch comedy. This was the first time I saw sketch comedy live, and I suppose it was midly interesting. I think the problem was some of them packed too much clever humour into their sketch, which was too difficult to grasp quickly. It was like english class, you had to figure out the themes and the meaning behind the message, but the themes were sometimes conflicting because you had no time to analyze the sketch! Also, I am not to impressed by slapstick humor anymore — getting old.

After a brief break, the next 2 hour set started, this time based on stand up. I found with stand up in general that it’s hit or miss. Sometimes, the comedian is bringing up stuff that you can relate too and it’s hilarious, sometimes you just can’t connect with them and it’s not so funny. Neither of these were the problem for the first few “up & comers” because, as their name implied, needed to polish their act and make their jokes flow better together. The later headliners were much better and funnier (What’s the most romantic language in the world? Chinese, because there are so many of them roflcopter). The MC was also not bad, as she knew how to work the crowd.

From 4PM to 6PM was improv, and it was a bit odd starting up because half the people in the audience left. Well throughout the day, I noticed performers sitting among, or returning to the crowd, so it may have been that all the improv people went backstage (the last two groups had like 15 people between them). The first improv group seemed to be put together at the last minute, and I think because of this, it was really funny. They asked for a couple of things from the crowd (Horror genre, France, Montreal shootings, & underpants) and improv’d from there. Especially funny was the asides they made to the audience (paraphrase: that was a french accent?). Also this was more like something you would see on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

The next two improvs were actually quite boring. They asked the audience for something (KD for the first, and construction worker for the 2^nd), used it for the first little bit, and then it seemed like they went on to do their own (possibly scripted) stuff. The third group at least did some singing, which may or may not have been scripted, because they had some killer clever stuff with ambiguously-ethnic Mr Sanchez.

Afterwards, we headed up to Sushi Time on Queen for some early dinner (since lunch consisted of some fries). This was the first time I had been in this place actually, and I always thought it would be sort of run down. It looks like they upgraded their furnishings recently because it is decorated pretty well now. Also the prices are fairly resonable for nice surroundings. Afterwards, we tested out my theory of there being more young, asian girls working the hot dog carts now, which didn’t work so well in simulation; but I am still positive that the theory holds. For Victor’s sake.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: comedy, elec2005, toronto