21 shows in 19 days: A Just For Laughs post-festival report

Gilbert Rozon

Just For Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon and COO Bruce Hills looked a little tired, but were all smiles as they met the press late last Sunday morning to officially wrap up the 32^nd edition of the festival.

And they had every reason to smile. This year, the festival attracted over 1.3 million visitors and sold over 200,000 tickets during its 19-day run of shows in English and French that were performed by over 200 comics from around the world.

“This is a great, vast festival,” said Rozon. “And I have to thank the Juste pour rire and Just For Laughs teams, because what they did was out of this world.”

Hills remarked how Just For Laughs exploded on social media this year, with more than 10 million followers on Twitter, and how it captured a younger demographic, not to mention attracted 20% more industry people, especially due to the fact that the monumental Comiccon in San Diego was happening at the same time.

“The (comedy) industry can’t believe the caliber of talent and fans that come to the festival. It shows their increasing love affair not only with the festival, but also with the fans and Montreal,” he said.

Personally speaking, this is the 29^th time I have attended Just For Laughs (and the 15^th time I am covering it as a member of the media), and I am increasingly impressed with how this festival has evolved and grown tremendously since I attended my first Just For Laughs show back in 1986 (which was Jerry Lewis’ Vegas-style show at Place des Arts). After watching a near personal record of 21 shows over the past 19 days of the festival, I have gathered my share of highlights and favorite moments; so here is my highlight reel of what I saw at the 2014 Just For Laughs festival.

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The old and new school of comedy were well represented by the hosts of the flagship Videotron Gala shows. Don Rickles’ gala started off with performances by four top comics (Alonzo Bodden, Tom Papa, Adam Hills and Caroline Rhea). This was followed by an hour-long concert performance by Rickles, which was reminiscent of a typical Las Vegas-style show of the 1960s, complete with dancing girls and a live orchestra onstage. Rickles, who is 88 years old, might have looked frail and performed his entire set seated on a chair, but his insult comedy spark was still there, as he masterfully interacted with audience members and dished out one jab after another without missing a beat. He also showed his rarely-heard talent as a singer, and expressed his humble gratitude of having a long career alongside some of the greatest names in show business, as well as a loving and supportive family. It’s great to see a legend as Don Rickles still going strong after 60 years in the entertainment scene.

Seth Rogen at the Just For Laughs Awards Show

On the other side of the comedy spectrum was Seth Rogen, who hosted one of the most energetic galas of the entire festival. The day after he accepted the Just For Laughs Award for Comedy Director of the Year along with Evan Goldberg, Rogen played to a sold out crowd at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier in a gala that featured such rising young comedy talents like Hannibal Buress, Al Madrigal, Joe Mande, Jerrod Carmichael, as well as surprise guest Joseph Gordon Levitt, who wowed the audience with his rendition of a classic Jacques Brel song (and in flawless French to boot). Rogen ended the gala with a finale that pandered to his native Canada on an extreme level. First, Habs’ mascot Youppi brought in a wheelbarrow filled with Timbits that he threw into the crowd; then a group of young women distributed Coffee Crisp bars and bags of ketchup potato chips to the audience, and then Habs’ defenceman P.K. Subban walked onstage with two pitchers of beer that he poured into the bowl of the Stanley Cup, in which Rogen then proceeded to drink from (and got a massive beer shower as a result). And in the end, all of this benefitted Rogen’s “Hilarity for Charity” foundation, which helps research into combating Alzheimer’s Disease (there was also volunteers selling raffle tickets before the show, in which three winners were picked to have a selfie taken with Rogen backstage immediately after the show).

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In light of the recent closing of the Comedyworks club after 24 years in business, it was refreshing to catch the premiere of the documentary “Eat Drink Laugh” at the Cinema du Parc, which focused on the legendary New York City comedy club The Comic Strip, which has been a comedy institution – and a launching pad for such superstar comics as Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock – since it opened its doors in 1976.

The "Eat Drink Laugh" gang at the premiere screening

Five years in the making, with over 100 people interviewed, “Eat Drink Laugh” tells how the Comic Strip was more than just a club, it was like a second home to many of these rising comics, whom regarded it as an “incubator for talent” and a “college for comedy”, as it tells its story through interviews, as well as rare grainy videotape footage of Seinfeld, Reiser, Murphy, Larry Miller and Adam Sandler performing on the club’s stage. After the screening, co-directors Abby Russell and Brent Sterling Nemetz, owner Ritchie Tienkin, co-producer Jeffrey Gurian, and Comic Strip alumni George Wallace, Judy Gold, Paul Provenza and Robert Wuhl engaged in a lively Q&A, as they shared their fond memories of starting their careers at the Comic Strip.

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The Green Room with Paul Provenza

Since it made its debut at the 2007 festival, “The Green Room with Paul Provenza” was one show that I always wanted to catch, but somehow never got the opportunity to do so. “The Green Room”, which took place at Place des Arts’ Salon Claude Leveille, is basically a free-for-all comedy bull session, in which a select group of comics sit around and unabashedly talk about a certain topic that was picked by Provenza. On the night I went (July 24), comics Bill Burr, Dom Irrera, Robert Kelly, Darrin Rose and Dave Attell joined Provenza in an introspective discussion on the topic “Tribute to Our Recent Fallen Comedians”, which focused on a group of comedians who tragically passed away at a young age over the past decade (John Pinette, Greg Giraldo, Mitch Hedberg, Patrice O’Neil, Richard Jeni and Robert Schimmel). It was great to see these comics swap stories and find out another side to these departed comics (Darrin Rose, who was Pinette’s opening act during one of his Canadian tours, remembered the only time Pinette snapped at him, which was when he went to a nearby donut shop without letting Pinette know, and almost got kicked off the tour as a result). “The Green Room” had a brief run on the Showtime network, and I hope some enterprising TV producer will have the sense to bring this excellent, revealing show back on the tube again.

Me and Brody Stevens

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There were three comics whom I saw perform for the first time this year at Just For Laughs and were so good, I deem them as my “discoveries” of the fest: Irish comic David O’Doherty combined sharp storytelling and way out comedy songs on his keyboard in a show that became one of the smash hits of the OFF-JFL series; Brody Stevens walked onto the stage of the Montreal Improv without a set list of material, and ended up performing one of the most unconventionally entertaining shows I have seen at the festival in a very long time. Somehow, Stevens pulled off something that mere mortal comics couldn’t, and held the audience spellbound for 90 minutes (and he can drum a pretty mean table top, chair and floor); Doug Benson brought the art of interruption from something obnoxious to something hilarious with “The Doug Benson Interruption”. Accompanied by the manically multi-talented Sean Cullen, Benson had a group of comics perform their sets, and tried to see how they can handle Benson’s constant interruptions. The results were pure hilarity (especially when him, Cullen and Greg Proops broke into a hysterical spoof of the James Bond movies).

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My favorite lines: From Paul Varghese at the Ethnic Show (about the controversy surrounding the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, which is of a smiling Indian): “The last time a Native American smiled? 1491.”

From Alonzo Bodden at the All Star Show, (about the L.A. Kings winning the Stanley Cup this year): “At the parade, there were one million people looking for Kobe Bryant.”

From Ruben Paul at the Russell Peters gala: “Haiti is so poor that we didn’t have an earthquake. We made it up so we can get some help.”

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Paul F. Tompkins

Other Just For Laughs highlights: Russell Peters closing the festival hosting two strong galas; James Adomian, who tirelessly bounced from show-to-show without showing any signs of slowing down (and offered killer impressions during his sets); Orny Adams’ display of showmanship (and effective improvising) after his microphone gave out during his set at the Chevy Chase gala (and after he kicked down the mic stand in a flash of anger); Paul F. Tompkins and his impersonations of Richard Branson and the Cake Boss; the Sean Cullen and Greg Proops podcasts;  Mike Marino, who killed at the Ethnic Show with his routine about Walmart; Andy Kindler’s State of the Industry Address; Tommy Tiernan and Mike Birbiglia’s solo shows at the Gesu; Jim Jefferies, whose solo show played to a near full house at the Maison Symphonique (and proved that the MSO’s majestic concert hall can also play to comedy shows); Godfrey, who can host the Relationship Show (or any Just For Laughs show) anytime; the powerhouse Club Series foursome of the Nasty, Ethnic, Relationship and All Star shows; and Stand Up/Strip Down at the Mainline Theatre hosted by Montrealer DeAnne Smith, which effectively revived the good old days when burlesque and comedy played on the same stage, in a series of highly entertaining two-hour late night shows.

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Finally, a big thank you goes to the Just For Laughs PR team – led by Jamie O’Meara -- for helping to make my 15^th year covering this festival such a fun adventure; shout outs also go out to PR team members Danny Payne, Michelle Aikman-Carter, Stephanie Morin Robert, Talar Adam, Alexandra Pakis and Dane Stewart. Also, I would like to thank the following people for making Just For Laughs 2014 a memorable one for me: Allan, Bill, Paul, Mo, Jeffrey, Rob, Pat, Rudy, Jony, Abdul, Valerie, Christina and George. See you next year at JFL #33.