Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

The Frantics at Yuk Yuks
Took Erika out for an evening downtown, this time to see The Frantics perform at Yuk Yuks.

We got there around 8pm and managed to get a decent seat not too far from the stage while still getting a table. Will have to remember for next time that the booths are reserved well beforehand. Ordered beer, calamari and quesadillas. The beer came in a bottle, the calamari was overdone and chewy, and the quesadillas were just okay. Low-grade pub grub that didn't even have the benefit of being cheap.

Yuk Yuks was built on stand-alone humour, so that's exactly what we got for the first half of the show. A very smart and funny young MC introduced several young, male comics doing their routines. It was a hit and miss affair, with a few too many doing the "I'm a loser/don't get enough sex/what I don't like about (generic pop culture reference)" shtick. Funny at the time, but not memorable. Best performers was the comic who came to the stage with a dry, droll delivery of a bunch of jokes with near perfect timing, and an older fellow who strayed off the more typical fare of the evening into some edgier humour. A remembered line which typifies the performances: "stereotypes are funny because they hurt people". That's the first half of the show in a nutshell.

A short intermission while mics were arranged on stage, and out came The Frantics. They were all reading from scripts, trying out wholly new material, and the material was all being recorded, apparently for release on their Web site sometime later. They announced that in addition to the CTV special they did (which should be airing sometime soon), they will now also be doing something similar for the CBC, which was good news to hear.

To me the funniest skit of the night was a lengthy monologue by Paul of a middle-aged character talking about his sex life. Basically it boiled down to a man finding that learning about new techniques is not necessarily a good thing. A hilarious piece that stands up with the best of their material. There was also an obligatory 9-11 piece about a Muslim man being questioned while riding on a bus. It had a fairly obvious punch line at the end, but the group is good at going for laughs that make you think. The other classic piece was a skit with Paul as the owner of a Saturn car dealership and Rick as an aspiring car salesman who demonstrates his sales technique – which turns out to be incredibly annoying. Describing it can't do it justice -- hopefully it appears on their Web site for download. Favourite piece from Peter was him trying to remember somebody who was evidently trying to see him, which was a minor tour-de-force, evoking a scatterbrained old character who knew a lot of people named "Thomas".

The rest of the skits and songs were so-so. There was a potentially good but ultimately aimless skit about two devils discussing the sins of their victims while on a coffee break, a meandering home shopping TV piece, and a rousing sea-shanty about "getting to Vagina" that was funny, but didn't hit the mark for me.

By this time I was suffering from severe butt-ache from the seating, a thought echoed by Erika as we staggered out of the venue. We found ourselves thinking about how the venue was better (more comfortable, no stand-up comedy beforehand, larger stage, better selection of beer which comes on tap instead of by the bottle) when they were performing at the Tim Sim's Theatre earlier in the year, but unfortunately that venue is no more.

Will probably be back for more next month however. ;-)