Jim Carrey was so terrible the first time he attempted standup at Toronto's Yuk Yuk's in 1977 that Mark Breslin remembers personally yanking the 14-year-old off the stage with an actual hook.
"He was awful," said Breslin, the comedy club franchise's owner and founder. "But when he showed up and he was 17, he was a dynamite performer."
Yuk Yuk's retired the hook in 1978 along with the penalty box and the tomato lady.
"There were a lot of people that just shouldn't have been on stage in those days," Breslin said.
But he says everyone's become funnier. "You know how when you go to see a wedding or a bar mitzvah there's always somebody who's the uncle who's a master of ceremonies, well 30 years ago you couldn't sit through 'em," Breslin said. "But now, they're all kind of, sort of funny, because they watch it on TV so much they know what to do."
After after a two-year hiatus from Vancouver, a new Yuk Yuk's will open in the former Plaza 500 Hotel at the corner of West 12th Avenue and Cambie Street, March 22.
Emo Philips, the American comedian with the wacky, wavering voice who long sported a Prince Valiant haircut, opens the club.
But Breslin notes Yuk Yuk's has always focused on nurturing Canadian comics, who have included Howie Mandel, Norm Macdonald and Russell Peters.
"Maybe even more important than that are the people that you may not know, that because of Yuk Yuk's and because of the circuit that we've created-which is not only the 17 clubs, incidentally, it's all the one nighters and weddings and bar mitzvahs and corporate speaking and all the things that we've managed to put together-allows people to make some kind of a living doing comedy here in their own home country," Breslin said. "If we didn't commit to that they'd all be going to the States, or they'd all be working at Starbucks."
He claims that "about 90 per cent" of Yuk Yuk's hires are Canadian.
"We put about $2 to $3 million a year into the hands of Canadian comics," Breslin added.
Yuk Yuk's has also always promoted a completely uncensored policy.
"It's something that doesn't mean as much now as it did way back when, when people were shocked more easily. Now because of cable television, a lot of the cultural landscape has caught up with us," Breslin said. "But we still leave the anger and the sex in, because we're not afraid of it and we don't think any adults should be."
The Cambie location is Yuk Yuk's fourth in the city and the 17th club across the country. The first Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Yuk Yuk's opened on Davie Street in 1988 and the last one left Burrard Street two years ago because of a franchise dispute.
"There's quite a demand for this now because we live in a world which is so full of lies," Breslin said. "To be able to stand up and kvetch and tell the truth is something that feels great, it's great therapy and the audience really needs a place to come and not hear the constant lies that they hear every day of their lives from their boss, their politicians, their spouse, their kids. They want to hear it like it is."
Breslin entered the comedy business right when the standup scene was changing.
"Going from somebody telling other people's jokes to telling your own jokes, going from telling censored jokes to telling uncensored jokes, going from dressing up on stage to dressing down on stage. That stuff all happened in 1976 to 1979, roughly, and then everything that's happened past then has kind of been the fulfillment of that change," he said.
Now, the man who went on to create a comedy school, produce TV shows including Late Night with Joan Rivers and to work as a story consultant on Kenny vs. Spenny says the Internet is reshaping the comedy world by creating "mini stars" who don't have to appear on TV to become well known.
Still, Breslin believes individuals remain keen to gather for comedy shows instead of merely gazing at computer screens.
"The three-dimensional experience is unique in that it's interactive and it's communal and there's nothing like sitting in a room full of strangers and laughing at something," he said.
Upcoming Canadian comedians slated to perform at the new Yuk Yuk's include Glen Foster, Ian Sirota and Aaron Berg. The controversial American comic Gilbert Gottfried, who lost a spokesperson job after joking about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year, performs April 12 to 14. A Wednesday open mic night is to start soon.
For more information, see yukyuks.com. [email protected] Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi
