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| Abdul Butt Since he was six years old, Montreal comedian Abdul Butt had a talent for getting himself into trouble, especially for saying things that he shouldn’t be saying in the first place at such an early age. |
“I was always
saying stupid things and thinking those were things you can say when you were
six years old,” he said. “However, I always got in trouble at school for that
and I thought how come I am not allowed to say that word? I was always singled
out; I made people laugh and got in trouble for it.”
Somehow, Butt made
getting into trouble for laughs a career, as his videos where he buttonholes
not only ordinary Canadians, but also prominent Canadian politicians, have
become a fixture on the CBC TV satirical news show “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”
(or 22 Minutes for short) over the past two years. And now Butt is ready to
cause more humorous trouble, as the 22nd season of 22 Minutes begins
this Tuesday night (October 7) at 8:30 p.m. on CBC, along with fellow cast
members Mark Critch, Shaun Majumder, Susan Kent and Cathy Jones, who has been
with the show since its debut in 1993.
Butt’s road to 22
Minutes began in Chateauguay, where he grew up watching Jerry Seinfeld, Jim
Carrey, Martin Lawrence and Air Farce on TV, as well as VHS cassettes of old
Red Skelton Show sketches from the 1950s and 60s with his older brothers, one
of them, Billal, is now CHOM-FM’s afternoon drive show host.
When Butt attended
Howard S. Billings High School, his propensity to cause trouble for laughs
continued even further. “I wasn’t a bad kid, I just liked to joke around a lot.
Somehow, as a result, I spent a lot of time in the hallways outside my
classroom or in the principal’s office,” said Butt during an interview I
conducted with him one late night in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel
during this year’s Just For Laughs festival.
However, when he
started attending Just For Laughs shows at the age of 17 (starting with the
Ethnic Show), Butt realized he can be a stand up comic and make people laugh
for a living without getting himself into trouble and earning him another trip
to the principal’s office. By the time he was 21, Butt began doing open mic
nights at the recently closed Comedyworks club. But when the club was reducing
the number of open mic night shows, he realized that he could get a wider
audience by simply making comedy videos and downloading them on YouTube. Most
of those videos were mainly streeters that were similar to the type Rick Mercer
did when he was a cast member on 22 Minutes. And somehow, Butt’s streeter
videos caught the attention of soon-to-be 22 Minutes colleague Mark Critch, who
sent samples of his videos to the producers of the show in Halifax.
“I met Critch at
Just For Laughs two years ago when I sent him samples of my videos, and the
following spring, they contacted me out of nowhere and asked me to come up with
an idea to do a streeter video, and brought a camera crew to Montreal to help
me shoot it,” he said.
Butt admits that
his favorite videos are the ones when he ambushes Canadian politicians (which
echoed the type of video segments that were done by former 22 Minutes cast
member Mary Walsh in the guise of her alter ego Marge Delahunty). In that vein,
Butt points out two segments that he is most proud of.
The first was when
he confronted the mayor of the Quebec town of Herouxville, who garnered a great
deal of controversy for his reasonable accommodation legislation regarding
ethnic residents of his town. “It was a real pleasure to sit down with him and
making him look really ridiculous,” he said. “I got to call him a racist on the
CBC and presented him with a plaque that cited him as the #1 racist for his
intolerance towards ethnic cultures. I never thought the segment would air, and
when it aired, it was like the greatest feeling ever.”
The second moment
was when Butt wanted to present a similar plaque to former Quebec Premier
Pauline Marois in honour of her notorious Charter of Values. After fruitless
attempts to arrange something with Marois’ representatives, he had no choice
but to take the ambush route. “I was really nervous about it, because I was worried
about the police taking the routine in a bad way, so I needed to say it in a
right way, so it wouldn’t get me tackled to the ground by the police; however,
I had another plan if I got arrested … I would say that the arresting officer
was a cast member from ‘Just For Laughs Gags’!”, admitted Butt.
“In the end, Marois
ran away from me,” he added. “I was upset about that because she didn’t stay to
accept the award.” The incident ended up making headlines the following day in
the pages of The National Post.
As Butt gets ready
for more video comedy segments for 22 Minutes’ 22nd season (with
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and Prime Minister Stephen Harper high atop his
ambush wish list), he enjoys his career as a troublemaker for laughs. “It’s not
always glamourous standing outside in -40 degree weather hoping to run into a
politician,” he said. “But I am very lucky to be doing this and I love it,
because that’s what I do on my own anyways. And collecting a paycheque for it
is quite surreal.”
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