Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

My Second Live Frantics Show
Last night I went to my second-ever live Frantics show. A long-time fan of the troupe dating back to their radio days in the 80s, when I heard that they were reuniting in preparation for a tour in the Fall, I knew I had to go see them. I went to see their first reunion show at the Tim Sims Theatre back in March not knowing what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised to find them at the peak of their form, and just as funny as I remember them being on the radio and on CD. There was a high percentage of new material in that show, and the skits were edgier than before, and yet it was still very smart skit comedy – a rarity in an age dominated by stand-up. It was a great show, and I couldn't wait until the next one at the end of May.

More people crowded into the tiny Tim Sims Theatre for this show than were there for the last show – word must have gotten out. On stage were a few cane-backed chairs and a picture of a smiling, sitting green Buddha on a stick – his purpose up there would be clear soon enough.

All four came onto stage sometime after 8:30pm to warm applause, their first skit featuring a bunch of golfers confidently predicting where there ball would go – and then grimacing as it landed somewhere else instead. It had a great payoff with the fourth and final golfer's more accurate prediction as to where his ball will end up.

The Buddha-on-a-stick featured in the next skit, as Rick came upstage dressed in orange robes and began to do a hilarious infomercial on instant Buddhism for those in a hurry. Rick's was truly frantic in this skit, offering a scattershot, low-cal enlightenment "or your money back". The next sketch was another hilarious ensemble piece, in which Dan's character learned how best to greet the CEO of the firm he was starting his new job with while grabbing his crotch.

This was followed by a few skits that had made it into the last show, including a hilarious and surreal card game between Rick and Dan featuring deadly diseases, and one featuring Dan as a vampire asking a guy on the Go Train whether or not he can suck his blood. I couldn't help but think that both skits would have worked well on the radio, but then you can't see the hurt puppy-dog look of Dan when he has to pick up two cards after having put down a relatively wimpy disease card, or Rick's manic look of triumph as he spiels off a particularly nasty disease card, or the look on Rick's face in the second skit as he slowly becomes convinced that having your blood sucked by a vampire isn't such a bad thing. The skits are tautly written and performed with a confidence that is rare to see in comedy today.

More new material: construction man "wooing" ladies, a skit that I can only describe as "too late to be gay", a hysterical song sung by Paul about "earth-raping" SUV drivers that had everybody on the floor. He flubbed his lines during the rap sequence in the song, but a happily generous audience – largely rolling on the floor by this point anyways – gave him a huge hand when he managed to get to the end of the song, script in hand. Then there was stellar Dan's solo performance as the husband who let's some hit men his wife has hired into the house. I've been to several of Dan's solo shows over the years, and sketches like these are a fine mix of comedy and dramatic pathos, with a fine tension that keeps you guessing what's going to happen next.

It was also interesting to see how The Frantics were refining and crafting their material between shows. A good example of this was the "Watering the Lawn" skit, which was the opening skit for the previous show, and one that dates back to their radio show days. Dan, ambles onstage wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, smiling benignly as he waters his garden, and various neighbours come over, watch, hum, and make comments on how dry the lawn is as they move their heads back and forth, following the water like watching a game of slow-motion tennis. At the last show there was a real hose used as a prop, but it was dropped from this one, maybe because the tension it introduced (will they turn the hose on?) was probably not what they wanted to get across. The same skit in the last show came across as a gentle "slice of life" comedy bit, but this one went further and had the whole troupe erupting from their humming into a manic rendition of The Beatles "Hey Jude" – more just drop-down funny (and more along the lines of what was in the original radio sketch from year ago.

The show finished with a couple of classic sketches: "Every Star Trek Episode in Under 5 Minutes" which is a tour-de-force effort for Rick, who plays Kirk, and especially Paul, who played every other Star Trek character including the entire bridge crew, the token red ensign who gets shot, and the alien "Kretchfoop". Paul even plays the Enterprise, wearing a sombrero and carrying two large red plastic baseball bats, running across the sound making "woosh" noises. A classic skit that made it onto an episode of the "Just for Laughs" Montreal TV comedy show back in the early 90s, and I never expected to see performed live. A real hoot! The final skit is one I call "Menarche on the Go Train", where Peter is a Dad calling home on the cell phone to discover that his young daughter is having her first period, the comedy coming from watching the other passengers on the train squirm in their seats as Peter tells his distraught daughter what to do over the phone. Brilliant stuff!

Just before the final bows Paul came on and announced that the next show will be recorded, with the intension of making a live comedy album out of it. In addition, all of the proceeds from the ticket sales go to charity. Truly a class act. Not to mention hysterically funny...