Monkey See

For the first "Return of MonkeyToast", the Comedy Bar was packed. Several shows in, it was only about half-full Saturday night. A situation not lost on the host, comic Ron Tite, when he opened the monologue. The format is simple: a series of improv skits is performed by comics based on interviews with local celebrities. Tonight there were two guests: Amber MacArthur, a local tech expert who has a number of TV and online shows, and Jason Agnew, hosts of a wrestling radio show, The Conventioneers, and stalwart of numerous Canadian game shows.

In a take-off of Tite's cringe-worthy gig at a birthday where a step-son laments about his disastrous life to his dad, the players had an office "gay party" segueing to a depressed Court Jester. Amber's tech experience inspired a Potato app ("identify all your favourite potatoes and their uses") and clueless Apple store employees. With Mother's day coming next week, there was a skit about a basement-dwelling nerd and his home-cooked Mother's day dinner (his mom would prefer a flat-screen TV). Jason's radio show gave us a small-time wrestling circuit trying to rebrand itself for the 21st century. Unfortunately, their decision to showcase their matches at Maple Leaf Gardens, now that it has turned into a supermarket, was a major snafu. There was also a skit about low budget reality-show-based Canadian game shows (with an appearance by Bob Barker), and a little girl who decided to grow giant testicles (courtesy of Jason's trip to a "Rocky Mountain oyster" festival).

The skits were generally funny but they recycled too many gags. The funniest elements from that first show was the recurring character and the we-are-the-world style song at the end of the night. For this show, they kept mining those two with a gimpy tiny-Tim character and an improvised song at the end of every skit. Some jokes do result from repetition but usually, and in this case, it's a diminishing return.