Some day, I really must go to this Just For Laughs shindig in Montreal. It's hilarity beyond imagining. Or so it seems.
The festival spawns more TV specials, series and itsy-bitsy things than all the Canadian commercial broadcasters make in a year. Or so it seems. Also, every darn live show, as it's seen on TV, is enjoyed as totally hysterical humour by the audience. Standing ovations inevitably follow much hooting and hollering with laughter. Or so it seems.
Neil Patrick Harris: Circus Awesomeus (Saturday, HBO Canada, 9 p.m.) is the latest Canadian TV spinoff from the festival. One understands the thinking in this neck of the woods – a bunch of famous, funny and talented people gather in Montreal so it's an opportunity to make quickie, ostensibly Canadian, TV content. From such shrewdness are fortunes made.
In this instance it's a variety show hosted by jack-of-all trades Neil Patrick Harris. Or as a Bell Media release declares, Harris "has run off and joined the circus!" The exclamation point is unnecessary because the show is beyond bizarre. It's a mad mash-up of magic tricks, acrobatics, stand-up comedy and the grotesque. In fact, there is a lot of the grotesque. And, unfortunately, it really isn't funny at all.
One can see why Harris likes doing this kind of show. It's a bit of this and a bit of that. Weirdness abounds, rudeness and swearing is rampant, and the audience is, of course, apparently awed and laughing all the way through.
Perhaps it's a Montreal thing during Just For Laughs – the knee-jerk response to everything is to applaud and appear to be wildly entertained.
Things open with the cult figure, singer and giant clown Puddles Pity Party introducing the show and Harris with a song. Then along comes Harris, to a very, very long standing ovation. This is before the show even starts and Harris has done a darn thing. Eventually he does some magic and mind-reading tricks accompanied by a pair of ta-dah girls, the latter being the highlight of the evening. Their professional smiles and elan are a triumph.
Then comes the Australian musical comedian Sammy J., who performs self-composed music with Randy the purple puppet. Unfunny songs with the puppet making wisecracks is the gist. Plus some shouting at the audience. That's followed by some sword-swallowing by a man whose name never registered.
At last there arrives some actual stand-up comedy from "little person comedian Brad Williams," who makes fun of the weather in Montreal. Also he illustrates how actor John Stamos is terrified of little people. There are a few funny bits and the comedy stops.
Minutes later, along comes "mysterious magician Ed Alonzo" who stuffs a rubber doll in a basket, or something, and there emerges a real, live girl! Next he swallows a balloon and talks in a funny voice. Mostly, it's poop and masturbation jokes.
A guy called "the incredible beat-boxing Beardyman" does some stuff and his routine is blessedly short. A Canadian, the "gravity-defying acrobat Hugo Desmarais," then shows off his bod and his tricks.
Some sort of climax of grotesquery is reached with a performance by "cabaret superstar Bridget Everett." Appalled, I looked up this person online. According to the Village Voice, "Bridget Everett is a face-sitting, dildo-wielding, alt-cabaret provocateur." Right. Well she is profoundly, odiously, sleazily not funny.
That's just me, of course. Perhaps in your universe her comedy does amount to "alt-cabaret provocateur." Harris seemed particularly well pleased with Everett's performance. So pleased that one suspects the joke is on the audience.
Now, note you, I also looked up the reviews of the live performances of Circus Awesomeus that were staged during last year's Just For Laughs. Admittedly, there were those who loved it as a bracing respite from countless stand-up comedy routines. That's nice. Guess you had to be there. I wasn't and most of you weren't.
In the annals of Just For Laughs TV spinoffs, this wretched, utterly repulsive special stands tall. It is so deeply unfunny it should win awards. An alt-award, perhaps. I really must go to Just For Laughs, some day, because it seems some things are only funny when you're there, right there, trapped and drinking the Kool-Aid.
Also airing this weekend
Crowded (Sunday, NBC, 9:30 p.m.) is a new sitcom, with a giggle or two and a sigh. It has a few laughs, for sure, but the premise is tired. Two middle-aged parents (Patrick Warburton and Carrie Preston) are beginning to enjoy being empty nesters when their twentysomething daughters unexpectedly move back home. So the house is now "crowded," geddit? Created by Suzanne Martin (Hot in Cleveland) and directed by sitcom-maestro James Burrows, Crowded has the slickness of NBC sitcoms of old and feels old in style. Like it was made in 1992.
Warburton is, as usual, adept at teasing physical comedy from the material, but the material is mostly threadbare.
The Wonder List With Bill Weir (Sunday, CNN, 10 p.m.) is a travel-and-curiosity series. The first instalment of the second season is "Cuba: Forbidden Island" and is described as this: "As Cuban barriers begin to crumble, the nation braces itself for a tourist invasion." Canadians, of course, almost weep at the idea of American tourists invading the place. Which is unlikely to be a theme on this one.