Sincerest Flattery

On Thursday night at the Comedy Bar, they had a charity fund-raiser called Other People's Stuff where local comedians did other comics' material instead of their own since comics are always being accused of stealing material. Only two did a straight up comedy routine: a Woody Allen bit that did not fare well, and some Chris Rock jokes that got some of its humour by being delivered by a short white man (Paul Bellini of Kids In the Hall's "Touch Paul Bellini"). A variation was mock routines that pay tribute to the performer: Russell Peters "jokes" that were straight up racist if not spoken by Peters himself and a kitschy Phillippe-Andre Gagnon (one of the funniest bit).

There were also a few re-imaginings: Abbott and Costello's Who's On First as done by Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter; Albert Brooks' Comedy Minus One with "Colin Mochrie". There were also tributes to kids comics: Christian cartoon Davey and Goliath; and a real-life Hagar The Horrible (the premise being a terribly unfunny newspaper comic will be just as unfunny acted out).

The most successful routines were from TV: Monty Pythons' Oscar Wilde sketch, The Frantics' A Piece of Pie, Second City's Gump (a painfully unfunny re-enactment), and Mitchell and Webb Look's Old Holmes. The night also included a few musical numbers: an original song that used all of Rob Ford's inflammatory and bone-headed remarks over his political career; one of the Frantics showed up to sing the hilariously witty I've Seen Pubic Hair (MacClean and MacClean); Dennis Leary's Asshole. The night ended with the uplifting song Because We're Kids from the live-action Dr. Seuss movie The 5000 fingers of Dr. T (1953).