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MONTREAL -- The best bits from a weekend spent at the Just For Laughs Comedy festival:
FUNEREAL LAFF: "No ties? What am I going to wear with my mock ribbed turtleneck and purple cargo pants? I've got a funeral to go to." -- New York comic Todd Barry on his discovery that Old Navy doesn't sell ties.
IDOL LAFFS: From the "Give the people what they want" file, on some Sunday this year, CBC viewers will see Monty Python legend John Cleese abuse Canadian Idol host Ben Mulroney verbally and finally "shoot" him dead -- to the delighted screams of 2,500 at this city's Theatre St. Denis.
And kudos to Mulroney for being a good sport about it.
It all happened at Saturday's gala of the Just For Laughs Comedy fest, taped for later broadcast, hosted acerbically and hilariously by Cleese -- who opened with a lament about his career, and being "reduced to hosting pathetic comedy festivals, introducing hack comics and even pretending to think they're funny."
With that, he announced he would be killing himself at show's end, and proceeded to hold a mock funeral (where he read his own glowing eulogy). Later he held a "Cleese Idol" competition, hosted by Ben, to carry on his legacy, with "contestants" doing
Silly Walks and giving impressions of his Black Knight and Mr. Gumby sketches.
Opening the bit, he intro'ed his "host" Mulroney as "someone as universally adored as I am." Later, commenting on Ben's performance, "I have never understood why your hosting skills have received such harsh criticism -- until now."
In savaging one of the contestants, Cleese commented, "There is no word that has been coined to describe the level of drek I've just witnessed -- although I'm leaning toward the word 'Mulroney.'"
Finally, at the end, he announced, "There is one thing I'd like to do as a great gift to all my Canadian fans," and he pulled out a gun, pointed it at Mulroney's chest, pulled the trigger and down Ben went." Very surreal.
GANGSTA LAFFS: "So anyway, I was in the park last night, chasing this white guy..." Best opening for a Black comic at Just For Laughs, the gangsta-styled Greer Barnes, who is an L.A. based TV writer.
HOLLYWOOD CALLING: Erstwhile on-camera guy and standup comic Jon Dore was so impressive as host of the Homegrown Comedy Competition on Wednesday that this weekend he was flown in to L.A. to audition today for a role in Patrick Warburton's upcoming sitcom Rules Of Engagement.
Baby-faced Demetri Martin does those "Youth corresponent" bits on The Daily Show (he's got one on marketing Turkish hookahs to young people airing tonight or tomorrow). He pitched a comedy called Will to Dreamworks last week, it was accepted, and ultimately he got a meeting with Steven Spielberg. "The upshot is it needs to be written in the next 10 weeks," says Martin, whose one-man show These Are Jokes has sold out the fest. "I'm walking around here feeling like it's the week before exams and I shouldn't be goofing off like this."
Expect an announcement this week about a Toronto date from Martin in late October or early November.
DREW LAFFS: "People say I should listen to my body to get healthy. Listen to my body? How do you think I got fat in the first place? 'Hey, why don't you spend all day masturbating and eating
pizza?' " -- Drew Carey, who recently had heart surgery.
JOKE'S ON US: "It's my mission to (bleep) the (bleep) of every single critic who gave my movie a good review," said Paul Provenza, director of The Aristocrats, the movie about the world's dirtiest joke, by way of "hello, thanks for the review" when we were introduced. That's just the way comics talk. Provenza was everywhere here, doing a documentary on the fest and the nature of comedy. He says he's got a followup project with Aristocrats co-producer Penn Jillette in the works.
SECRET LAFFS: And for the record, here's the joke John Cleese says is "the only one that made me laugh out loud all year": Dick Cheney reads the paper and sees that George Bush's approval level is at 32%. He goes up to him and says, "What's your secret?"