If you're looking for a few cheap laughs...

oh man, this blog thing could be addicting...

All right then, straight off: I want all of my readers to be aware of two things.... things that have entertained me for years now and continue to make me laugh so hard I want to go out and pee all over my driveway. Those two things are The Phil Hendrie Show and Trailer Park Boys.

But I would also state up front that these two shows are NOT for everyone... and probably not for anyone under 18. However, if you enjoy either of these shows I'd be happy to bring over some beer and experience them with you, anytime (now that I'm gainfully unemployed!)

Sleighted By Voices

The "World Famous" Phil Hendrie Show aired for 16 years (until last year) but the show's online archive (seven bucks a month or $30 for six months access) remains an absolute treasure trove of comedy. I think Phil's show is best labeled comic radio theater... it's really a send-up of the whole talk radio medium and the people who participate in it.

What Phil does is basically this: he gives voice to characters whom callers believe to be real. At first listen you might not believe it, but the technical setup couldn't be a whole lot simpler: Phil uses a telephone and microphone to act as the character calling in and the regular "Phil." Callers think they're talking to two different people but Phil is so preternaturally quick with this voice -- sort of like a ventriloquist who can switch voices in a millisecond and make it sound as if the one voice is interrupting the other -- it's easy to see why those not in on the joke get hooked.

This sort of setup leads to some BRILLIANT what I would call a sort-of "meta-criticism" of the media, politics, and a host of other issues. And besides the voices, Phil mixes mixes music and sound effects into his act and it is a RIOT. Like one listener commented, Phil does the work of a hundred geniuses in half the time. And if you suspect there's any trickery going on with processors, sound boards, etc., then take a look at one of Phil's live webcasts (available on his Web site.) The man can talk about 10 times faster than most people (including me) can think, I swear.

I can't possibly do the Phil Hendrie Show justice in written format; if you want to know more you'll just need to listen for yourself. And then it will likely take a week or two of listening to really "get" what he's up to. It can be tricky at first but just roll with it for awhile and soon you'll be doing foul things to your own driveway.

Welcome to Sunnyvale!

The other favorite I mention here is Trailer Park Boys. Wildly funny and over-the-top, it's one of my all-time favorite TV shows on a LONG list of all-time favorites (The Wire probably topping that list.) It's Canadian, so you know there's a pretty good chance it's funny... as it follows a longtime Canuck tradition of groundbreaking comedians/comedy from the likes of SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Bob and Doug McKenzie, John Candy, Martin Short and his Jiminy Glick show, Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, Eugene Levy, the late Phil Hartman, et. al., etc., and probably many others I've neglected to list. (In fact, just looking on wikipedia at Canadian comedy shows, I'm intrigued by a couple other titles I just spotted: The Sausage Factory and Not My Department. Funny names for shows at least and hey, I'd be checking them out if I lived in Halifax instead of Iowa.)

Trailer Park Boys is indeed partially funded by the Canadian government, which an American might find astonishing given the show's content -- the near-constant swearing, fighting, drinking, dope growing, gunplay, petty thievery, etc. This is a show that, to my knowledge, has NOT aired anywhere inside the US except for maybe briefly on the Showtime channel. And I guess it's not so hard to understand why the program hasn't found a real home on any American channel - - given the uptight, politically correct, near-hysterical, and aggressively Calvinist society we live in today. In fact, to my knowledge -- and I hope someone will please correct me on this if I'm wrong -- this show hasn't rated much of ANY mention in the US press -- not in Entertainment Weekly, not in Rolling Stone, and not by any American television critic that I've ever read (though I suppose that's understandable given that they're so busy watching and reviewing such gems as "According to Jim " and "Becker" or else the latest craptacular reality show -- and hey, I'm sure there's a whole raft of equally crappy, soon-to-be-canceled network sitcoms and reality shows that are in urgent need of review for the upcoming fall preview issues!)

More later but let's leave it there for now.

L