This Is That (CBC Radio One: premiered Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 7:30 PM ET/PT; also Saturdays at 10:30 AM ET/PT) is CBC Radio’s attempt to build comedy from made-up news stories.  It’s already the most honest news show on CBC Radio One right now, in that TIT admits that it makes shit up.  You won’t find that candidness on Q or The Current.

Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring are This Is That‘s creators.  Their previous attempt at media humour, Good Morning World, aired in 2007 on The Comedy Network.  GMW was a web series given a berth on TCN in one of the channel’s “is this CanCon enough?” periods.  Like most shows on TCN, it hasn’t fared well.

This Is That has its share of problems.  Kelly and Oldring too often fumble for words, which isn’t surprising for an improv show.  I don’t find This Is That that funny after one episode, though the podcasts prior to TIT‘s debut are worse.  I wonder if TIT will be able to sustain itself for two months without growing stale, since TIT is the very definition of “skeleton crew.”

At the same time, TIT is a fairly accurate parody of the typical CBC human-interest news show.  It has the vacuous host chatter, documentary segment and interview banter down cold.  Oldring in particular could host a serious CBC Radio show, and not sound out of place.

Sadly, I grade shows like This Is That on a curve.  CBC Radio has let loose some real dogs over the years.  I remember the skein of attempts to rip off Double Exposure – The Muckraker, What a Week, National Pastime.  Al Rae/Content Factory’s comedy bits on The House are consistently piss-poor.

At the same time, CBC Radio has mounted The Great Eastern and given a radio sitcom to John Wing, Jr.  The Debaters isn’t too bad, pitting standup comics against each other.  Even Laugh Out Loud has given birth to Cynically Tested’s Truth From Here, which really needs to be a series.

TIT lies somewhere in the middle of CBC Radio’s comedy output.  It’s better than it should be, given Kelly and Oldring’s previous contribution to the Canadian cultural chum mill.  It’s managed to fool the National Post, which already makes TIT more notable than Good Morning World.

I hope This Is That improves in the coming weeks.  Even if the show isn’t that funny, it should at least confuse listeners.  That was a quality The Great Eastern had, enough that I hated the show years before I finally “got it.”  This Is That won’t be CBC Radio’s equivalent of The Onion or Weekly World News, but it should be.  This Is That doesn’t obsess over fake tan jokes, so that’s half the battle won right there.

I’m not going to beat around the bush.  The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has cut $171 million from its budget.  800 jobs will be lost.

I also won’t repeat the usual talking points.  Instead of doing what other people are doing and complain about how the Mothercorp is a billion-dollar waste of money and/or a crown jewel that Stephen Harper wipes his ass with, I’m going to actually pick apart some of the items that are being dumped or slashed.  The list is taken from Tod Maffin’s blog, just because it’s in neat point form.

Oh, and here’s Richard Stursberg being a gimboid.

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CBC RADIO
Cut:

* The Inside Track

Although the show was in decline its last few seasons, it’ll be sad to see this show go.  The Inside Track was CBC Radio’s only high-profile sports program, so it filled a niche.  If nothing else, The Inside Track was the only show where Nick Purdon didn’t come across as annoying.  Twenty-five years is a decent run for any CBC Radio show.

* Outfront

I won’t miss Outfront.  It’s never been one of my favourites on CBC Radio One.  The idea was sound – “ordinary people” make a documentary with the CBC’s help – but the execution was wanting.  I would have been happier with the show if it wasn’t so middle-of-the-road with its subject matter.  The Dead Dog Café was better at filling fifteen minutes of time slot.

* In the Key of Charles

The In the Key of Inanity blog, not surprisingly, welcomes this news.  Was this show any good?  I’ve rarely had any reason to listen to CBC Radio 2, before and after the format change.

* The Point

Thank God.  This show never got off square one.  CBC would have been better off not launching The Point in the first place.  Aamer Haleem will be hanging around the schedules for a while, filling in for Jian Ghomeshi on Q like CBC Radio’s other personalities.  I don’t know what will take The Point‘s place on CBC Radio One, but geez, even Freestyle lasted two seasons before it was taken out back and shot.

* La Ronge SK bureau (one person)
* Thomson MB (one person)

Any reason why these one-person bureaux were being maintained until 2009?  They both served rural communities – Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Manitoba, respectively.  If either of these bureaux were producing decent content, more power to them.  It’s sad to see rural-oriented stations close, but I’m not surprised they’re gone.

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Reduced:

* Radio drama

I don’t think cutting radio drama is a good idea.  I’d rather listen to radio drama than politically-oriented current affairs shows or Rita Celli.  Monsoon House was given another season this year, which is a no-brainer since Russell Peters is omnipresent on Showtime, but what about Man, Woman and Child?  Is radio drama that expensive to mount?  Does radio drama not count unless Al Rae or Nick Purdon are involved with a show?

In a perfect world, CBC Radio would be using these shows as testing grounds to see if they’d work on television.  Then again, CBC Radio rarely has shows on the level of The Boosh or On the Town with The League of Gentlemen.  There should be more to radio drama than Afghanada.

* Radio 3 consolidated (single feed of satellite and online programming

I honestly hope Sirius Canada is included in the sale of CBC’s assets.  Sirius XM in America still exists, but it’s a sub-dollar stock.  CBC should just cut its losses with satellite radio, since even the founder of Sirius thinks the future is in Internet radio.

Sirius XM might still eke out its niche in subscriber-based Internet radio, but I’ve never understood why CBC part-owns Sirius Canada and runs Galaxie.  The best bet is to stick with Galaxie.  Let Astral Media or whomever will buy CBC’s stock in Sirius Canada play around with it once Sirius embraces the Internet model.  Hell, move CBC Radio 3 to Galaxie if possible.  Satellite radio is a bust at this point.

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* Staffing in Windsor, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Quebec City, Moncton, Saint John, Sydney, Gander, Corner Brooks and Grand Falls will be downsized. Thunder Bay, for instance, to lose 4-6 positions out of 13.

These jobs are never coming back.  CBC will just become more focused on the major urban centres with every budget cut.  I won’t go so far as to call CBC Toronto-centric, since the CBC wall of bland sounds the same in Ottawa, Vancouver, Winnipeg or anywhere else in the country.  It’s a sad day for regional programming.

When I first “relaunched” (read: updated on a regular basis) URBMN back in late September, I talked about CBC’s latest attempt at afternoon show fodder, The Point.  I had hoped that the show wouldn’t “go completely shit within the week.”  It didn’t.  It went completely shit within a few weeks.

I’ve given up on The Point.  Aamer Haleem is too eager to please.  The music doesn’t go beyond the currently hyped college rock/pop of the moment.  The panel discussions are inane.  In short, The Point is the typical overearnest CBC Radio One panel show.  Things that most annoy me about The Point:

Aamer Haleem calls The Point‘s voicemail segment an “audio blog.”  It’s not an audio blog if public radio is the first place in which the segment appears, Haleem.  If The Point‘s phone line counts as an audio blog, Cross Country Checkup has been liveblogging in audio since 1965.

On top of that, the “have your say, Canada!” voicemail segment seems lifted from Richardson’s Roundup/The Roundup.  It doesn’t even have a catchy phone number like 1-800-SAD-GOAT.  I’m sorry, 1-888-91-POINT doesn’t cut it.

Is this show supposed to be current affairs?  If it is, why the hell was The Point talking about who the best Bond was when I listened to it on Friday?  The show devoted a week to “who’s the best Bond?”  That’s important to anyone?

Topics like the online selling of secondhand burial plots are what I hate most about The Point.  The story is just a public relations stunt made legitimate by CBC Radio One.  The segment comes across as glib and doesn’t tie in well to the larger issue of global financial uncertainty.  At least when The Agenda with Steve Paikin covers current affairs, it doesn’t try to sugarcoat its topics.

I prefer CBC’s specialist shows, like White Coat, Black Art and Quirks & Quarks.  While those shows are sometimes personality-driven, they’re at least about something.  The Point is about nothing.

The Point is yet another one of those shows where the format is built around the host, rather than the host fitting the format.  The Point suffers from The Hour Syndrome, wherein a younger host tries to make CBC programming more “hip.”

This tack fails most of the time, since the antithesis of being cool is trying one’s ass off to be cool.  Also, the “younger, hipper” hosts tend to push 40 and aren’t that cool in the first place.  Why does CBC Radio have such a conservative programming strategy?  Did you know CBC Radio used to have a horror program way back when?

One day CBC Radio will figure out how to market to a younger audience without aping college radio and/or trying too hard to appeal to “the kids.”  It sure as hell isn’t going to happen with The Point.

• The show played bands like Patrick Watson, Arcade Fire and Stars.  I don’t expect Suffocation’s “Pierced From Within” at 2:00 PM in the afternoon*, but the music just doesn’t fit well with the content.  It would be nice for a show on CBC Radio One to not hold to the “music, then talk” lockstep of shows like Sounds Like Canada.  At the very least – if the show has to play music – play more obscure stuff, or a wider array of music than the popular college rock/pop way too many CBC Radio shows have played for at least ten years.

• The closing theme song is much better than the opening theme song.  At the beginning of the show I thought The Point had been cancelled and an episode of Quirks & Quarks thrown out in its place.  At least two shows use that Neil Armstrong clip on CBC Radio now, and that’s just lazy.
• Judging by the first episode, Aamer Haleem isn’t that bad a host.  He’s trying far too hard to be genial, but he’s better than Jian Ghomeshi.  I admit that I liked Ghomeshi when I reviewed Q for blogcritics.org, but since then I’ve found him smarmy and insufferable.  I don’t understand CBC Radio’s love for hosts from music cable channels – Haleem left VH1 to host this show, so at least it’s not combing MuchMusic this time – but there have been far worse hosts.  Then again, Haleem could get worse by next week.
• From the cbc.ca site: You will also hear stories you won’t get elsewhere, which is why Jesse Brown is on the show extrapolating an idea from his Search Engine blog.  CBC Radio reuses segment ideas often.  I just wish the producers of these shows would admit it.
• The Point seemed to get better by the third half-hour.  This is the inverse of Q, where the third half-hour is almost always throwaway shit.  The topics covered on The Point were either genuinely interesting – St. John’s George Street receiving a makeover so as to appeal to tourists and cut down on drunks – or pointless, like a segment on “green fatigue.”  The show seems a little too gimmicky at this point – Haleem’s “what if life had an instant replay” rant was lame and I’m not entirely sold on this rotating cast of “Point People.”  Yay for more fucking panel discussions!  If there’s one thing you don’t hear on CBC Radio, it’s that!

Overall, not a bad first episode.  Hopefully the show doesn’t go completely shit within the week.

^{*although that would be interesting, just to piss 97.5% of CBC Radio One listeners off}

I’m still for some reason listening to CBC Radio One.  Mind you, I’m not as hung up on that particular Crown Corporation as I was a few years ago.  Years of the company having no damn clue what to do with its many parts can do that to a company’s reputation.  You may have heard about the relaunching of CBC Radio 2, which is just swapping middle-of-the-road presentations of classical music for, uh, middle-of-the-road presentations of Ron Sexsmith.  Oh, Buck 65 has a weekday show.  I’ll stick to Carbonized, thanks.

Somehow 2′s relaunch and the elimination of the CBC Radio Orchestra caused outrage among classical music fans.  Blah blah dumbing down blah blah right-winger thinks the CBC should be eliminated yada yada Air Farce is cancelled and CTV owns the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme, so nothing new in MotherCorpLand.

I decided to check out Search Engine‘s blog for shits and giggles.  I was surprised by the fact that the show was still on, albeit as a podcast.  Two things I noticed while listening to Search Engine:

1) Jesse Brown talked about the 2008 Canadian federal election – largely an ineffectual popularity contest between a boring Albertan, a boring Francophone and a boring man with a moustache – by saying that Canada is retarded.  Granted, he qualified that statement by saying that the political parties’ sense of Internet savvy was current for 1999.  Why he didn’t just say that is beyond me.  The segment came across as Jesse Brown wanting to be edgy, but finding something to backtrack on if someone objected to the use of the word “retarded.”

2) All the problems that Search Engine had in its first season exist this season – some pieces being basically non-stories (Gabe Carini runs for Prime Minister through MySpace, a PRWeb story if there ever was one), Brown’s forced-seeming attitude, and CBC shows using CBC as a topic.  Granted, Brown’s only put out two shows this season, but this show needs to be more gonzo, less self-absorption.

Also, The Tea Makers is back under the control of blogger/accessibility expert Joe Clark.  Being one of the most vocal CBC-related blogs, there’s the requisite bitching about CBC management, discussion about Search Engine, those fucking Allan posts et cetera.  I guess some people are giving Clark shit for not being as witty as “Ouimet,” the previous anonymous packet of data running that blog, but I dunno.  I don’t notice the difference.  It’s still whiny in spots and has always come across as people complaining about CBC not adhering to high ethical standards/mandate/what have you.  Sometimes The Tea Makers is good, and other times it’s navel-gazing shit.  It’s still far more entertaining than Shelagh Rogers or DNTO.

Matt Watts has been responsible for some of the better CBC Radio comedy programs of recent years.  Steve the First and its sequel Steve the Second used the concept of random schlubs surviving standard-issue Mad Max-like dystopias to some degree of success.  While the two Steve series were uneven in spots, Watts has at least proven that he can do satirical science fiction.  Canadia: 2056 is his most consistent effort to date and has already been renewed for a fifteen-episode second season.

The two Steve series will be given a second airing on CBC Radio One starting July 23.  Both Steve the First and Steve the Second are being rerun weirdly – Monday through Friday at 11:30 AM until August 1, which is of course the best way to air limited-run niche series.  That’s still better than the fate of The Adventures of Apocalypse Al, which is sitting in CBC Radio archives despite J. Michael Straczynski’s involvement.

This email has been in my archives since July 4, 2007.  At least you get to read this interview before everyone involved with it is dead.

How well has CBC Radio promoted Canadia: 2056 and the two Steve series?  Should there be more promotion for CBC radio dramas overall or is it worth it considering the smaller audience for radio when compared to television?  How could podcasting/”the INTERNET®” help, since the MP3 player is not going away any time soon?

No comment (read into that however you like.)

Why have you picked sci-fi themes and parodies as fodder for your radio dramas?  Such a thing is atypical for CBC Radio considering shows like Monsoon House, Man, Woman & Child and Madly Off in All Directions tend to be more typical of CBC Radio’s comedic output.  I know you’re influenced by science fiction and “zany madcap humour” but it’s almost out of place compared to giving established Canadian stand-ups a half hour to play with.  Not that I hate Man, Woman & Child, but I’ve been familiar with John Wing Jr. since the early 1990s and it’s sort of sad that I’ve been aware of his work since I was twelve.

I picked science fiction as a genre for radio because I figured that I might as well make the most of the medium.  You can take the audience anywhere with radio.  Why not do something you couldn’t do on television?  With that in mind, I’ve tried to keep things fairly simple in terms of the storylines.  To me it’s about the relationships, not about the “flash” of science fiction.  When it came to Canadia, I really wanted to do something about US/Canadian relations and I wanted to use a war as a backdrop.  I wanted to explore more general themes of how these two countries interact without getting into a political debate about the current (or recent) war, so that meant I could set it in the past or the future.  I get really bored with historical dramas.

You think my stuff is “zany madcap?”  Huh…I never looked at it like that.  I guess Canadia has a farcical quality to it, and Steve was definitely absurd.  Zany Madcap it is!

[NOTE: That "zany madcap" bit was referring to the fact that Matt Watts was influenced by radio comedies like The Goon Show.  You can tell I was having a Ron Obvious moment there.]

How do you feel about science fiction, arts-wise (film, television, softcore porn etc.) and/or as a literary genre?  How popular a niche is science fiction in Canada, in your opinion?  You don’t think CBC wasted its money helping bankroll Doctor Who and Torchwood and thereby indulging Russell T. Davies’ wildest fantasies, do you?

I love science fiction but I think it can be alienating when it puts the emphasis on the “science” and not on the “fiction.”  The story always has to be engaging, regardless of the genre.

I think its popularity as a genre is fairly consistent throughout the world.  Canada hasn’t produced a lot of science fiction television or films, but we’ve produced a lot of written sci-fi.  I honestly don’t know if there’d be an audience for my kind of sci-fi in Canadian television.  If Canadia was a television show, would it have a big audience?  I’m sure it would have a loyal audience; I just don’t know if that’s enough.  Look at the nightmare the Red Dwarf guys are having trying to get funding for their film.

As for Doctor Who, I’m biased.  Sci-fi or not, it’s my favorite show, and it has been since I was about four years old.  I can’t even give you an honest criticism of the new show, because I cry every time the credits start and don’t stop until about half an hour after it’s over.  It strikes some kind of weird nerve with me (no one hugged me as a child, all I had was TV.)  I love the show.  I’m glad CBC is putting money into it.  I wish they had some kind of say in the production.

I wish they could get me over there.  I think writing on that series would be the greatest job ever.  It’s my dream.  It’ll never happen but it’s nice to dream.

Embarrassing child-like reaction aside, I think the CBC should be doing a lot more co-productions with the BBC.  Less American influence, more UK, I say.  Team up with Auntie Beeb!  Let’s face it, our tastes are more in line with the UK’s, aren’t they?

How do you compare your CBC radio dramas to your other work?  Your most well-known roles outside of CBC Radio are for your involvement in Ken Finkleman’s sitcom The Newsroom and Don McKellar’s film Childstar.  How important is “know someone in the business” in comparison to “make sure what I’m writing doesn’t suck shit?”

The Newsroom was great.  Although I was a creative consultant the third year, I was really just an actor for the two years I was on the show.  Those two years were probably the most fun I’ve had in my life.  With my radio stuff I have a lot more control and a lot more pressure.  I write the episodes, then go in and record them.  It’s totally different.  I’m a lot more concerned with the final product than I was on The Newsroom.

As for knowing people in the industry?  Someone can open a door for you, but once you’re in there you’d better have a fucking great script.  The most important thing is always the writing.  Otherwise, you’re just going to look unprepared and foolish, and that “friend” in the industry is likely to never help you out again.

How does it feel getting people like Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall; Saturday Night Live) and Peter Wildman (The Frantics) to be involved with your radio dramas?  How does the “marquee name” – well, as much as CBC budgets will allow for radio drama – attract casual interest for the dramas, or are listeners there because CBC Radio isn’t just rebroadcasting routines from the Winnipeg Comedy Festival?

I don’t know what the listener numbers are, or if having marquee names actually increases listenership.  Having Mark on the Steve series came about because we’d been looking for a project to work together on for years, and he really liked this idea.  It was never about landing a name – he was involved in the project since pretty early on.

I love Peter Wildman.  My producer actually brought him in for the part [of Captain of the USS Pickens] not because of his name, but because he thought he’d be good in the role.

I was pretty excited to have Peter on because I was a fan of his as a kid.  Mark I’ve known for years, so it was nice having a friend around who had a better idea of what was going on than I did.

I’m against trying to get marquee names in general, only because it’s distracting.  Why bother?  Just make it good.

I got pretty excited when Donnelly Rhodes [Battlestar Galactica's Doctor Cottle] agreed to be in Canadia – he plays the president in the opening credits.  I didn’t try to get him because I thought it would help gain listenership – I’m just a fan.  His voice was perfect.

What’s next for Matt Watts?  What sort of subjects do you feel you’ll go to once (or if) you ever exhaust making fun of Canadian cultural mores through a sci-fi based comedy radio program?  Does the idea of making veiled jabs at CBC programming decisions through the sci-fi conceit seem subversive to you, or do you not believe in that “subversive” crap and need the money?

Yeah, I do love poking fun at the CBC.  I really love the place, so it’s never done out of malice (just to be clear.)  I assume that the jokes are relevant to anyone that works in any kind of large corporation.  If Canadia continues there’ll be plenty more of that kind of stuff.

I don’t know if I feel the need to comment on Canadian culture so much.  I feel like Canadia has been that outlet for me.

I loved writing Steve the First because its premise was simple: a bum like me saving the world after an apocalypse.  I knew exactly how this one character would react to all the absurdities and hell that he’d encounter.

I’m working on a feature that will hopefully move beyond my computer.  It’s in keeping with the tradition of most of my stuff in that it’s about a boy and a girl (I know it’s not always clear, but ultimately everything I write is about a boy and a girl.)  Unlike everything else, it’s set on Earth and there are no apocalypses or aliens.  It’s not science fiction at all.  It’s the least sci-fi thing I’ve written.  It’s 100% sci-fi free!

Joe Mahoney [producer, Steve the First and Steve the Second; story editor on all Matt Watts' radio dramas] has been pushing me to novelize the first Steve series, and I’ve been tinkering with that over the last few years.  Maybe that’s what will be next, although it’s the scariest and most daunting thing I’ve ever tackled.

I just keep writing and hope that someone will be interested in it.

Matt Watts’ page
CBC Radio Canadia page (or at least a vague simulation)

Q, meant as a general and wide-ranging arts and culture show, has displaced shows like Freestyle and The Arts Tonight on CBC Radio One schedules.  This is part of a general restructuring of CBC Radio to assess the fact that the average listener is over the age of 65.  CBC Radio as an organization is correctly assessing that some things about its networks have run their course – too much of a classical music focus on CBC Radio Two, for instance.

At the same time, the new shows often come at the expense of shows that didn’t need to be sacrificed, Brave New Waves being the most notable of the shows that recently went defunct.  The questions are: is Q a good show period, and is it better than the shows it replaced, most notably Freestyle and The Arts Tonight?

The second question, at least for me, is answerable.  Q is better than Freestyle, the show it’s directly replacing.  What annoyed me about Freestyle was the format of two hosts making idle chatter and then playing music being flimsy at best.  None of the hosts were able to transcend such a bad format.  Q has some structure to it – its promise to cover the whole of culture is already being met.  Lame title aside, Q knows why it’s on the schedules.

As for the first question, the show’s a little too uneven to properly gauge at this point.  Q is a mixed bag.  Pieces have already ranged from the essentially meaningless (an interview with Harry Connick Jr. where Connick shilled his New Orleans tribute CD) to the truly interesting (a piece about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Once upon a Time Walt Disney exhibition.)

A few pieces came across as spillovers from Definitely Not the Opera – the deconstruction of Beyoncé songs from an “armchair therapist” being one piece best left untouched.  Shows like DNTO and Go! are sometimes hard to take due to that sense of humour, and I’d hate to see Q fall into that trap.

Thursday’s opening, where host Jian Ghomeshi actually addressed Q‘s perceived Toronto-centric bias (that’s where the show is located, so of course it’s going to reflect Toronto culture to a certain extent), gives me hope that bad pieces will be the exception for the show.  I love that a CBC Radio show addresses its shortcomings instead of ignores them.  It’s about damn time!

Speaking of Ghomeshi’s hosting style, it’s at least credible.  As CBC Radio personalities go, he’s professional enough – he genuinely seems to enjoy his job and doesn’t come across as forcing the pace or being obnoxious like other CBC Radio personalities (Sook-Yin Lee, I’m looking in your direction.)  This being CBC Radio One, there’s not much deviation from the standard CBC arts show template – contributor’s pieces, interviews with Canadian artists, music.  It’s the format most shows on CBC Radio use.  Hopefully Q will become more diverse in the weeks to come, because two pieces on Loreena McKennitt in five days really isn’t that adventurous.

Overall, Q is what I expected it to be – a few mistakes here and there, rough around the edges, not without dodgy interview subjects (Suzie McNeil from Rock Star: INXS and the Toronto performance of Ben Elton’s We Will Rock You, although that interview had good insight into how reality shows actually work.)  Still, as debuts go Q shows some promise.  It doesn’t stray far from the CBC/public radio mandate, but I like that the show has potential to cover territory unfamiliar to CBC Radio and I hope Q exploits that in the near future.

If only Q didn’t tell me how many letters are in its name, it’d be set.  That tagline is aging faster than Ra’s Al Ghul when he stops feeling the effects of the Lazarus Pit.

Q, CBC Radio One
Friday, 11:30 AM-12:00 NOON (limited run)

The Best of Scharpling and Wurster on the Best Show on WFMU, Volume 4: The Art of the Slap
Stereolaffs, 2007

I was a bit skeptical about Scharpling and Wurster’s The Art of the Slap when I first heard about it.  Tom Scharpling’s day job is as a writer/executive producer for Monk while Jon Wurster has involved himself with bands like Superchunk and the Mountain Goats.  Together they have contributed voices to Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Squidbillies (good) and have involved themselves heavily with Tom Goes to the Mayor (bad.)  Their pedigrees include a mix of the great and the forgettable.

Nowadays, I often reference Philly Boy Roy routines without knowing.  Scharpling and Wurster have that effect on people.

The type of comedy The Art of the Slap deals in is hard to pull off.  Considering the level of difficulty in trying to make the ridiculous believable, S&W acquit themselves very well.  This won’t be everyone’s type of comedy – hell, I didn’t even think it was that funny on first listen.  Still, S&W have taken the Simpsons/South Park tack of building an entire self-contained universe out of a volunteer show on famed freeform station WFMU.

Ten years after Jon Wurster pulled a prank on WFMU listeners by pretending to shill the worst music reference book ever (well, the worst fake music reference book ever), Scharpling and Wurster can make something outlandish easily seem like it’s happening right now.  They can mix a realistic, down-to-earth routine with robots and magic powers.  The joke is on the listeners for buying into all this even when they’re in on the joke.  It’s quite a proactive, dynamic paradigm – with zazz!

Caution: this contains spoilers.  Then again, if you’re familiar with Scharpling and Wurster and/or have gone to recidivism.org you would realize that I’m spoiling at most 5% of the routine.  S&W’s routines are just that involved – and long.

Disc One
Jock Squad (October 11, 2005) – That isn’t much of a premise, frankly.  A parody of Geek Squad but with jocks?  Way to aim high, S&W!  The standard Scharpling & Wurster buildup is established for the neophytes: the Jock Squad turn out to be ‘roid balloons, spending most of their time working out (sometimes with the computers they’re supposed to be fixing – the Jock Squad even shoot .mpgs of themselves destroying computers) and taking thirty minutes of their time each day to actually learn about computer repair.  Well, they don’t really learn about computer repair, but they tune up Scharpling’s computer by rinsing it out.  Scharpling has bodily harm threatened on him, setting up the denouement that listeners will be familiar with after listening to more than one S&W routine.  Kind of obvious, but “Jock Squad” does have its moments.

The Auteur (March 4, 2006) – “The Auteur” Trent L. Strauss defends his films (You’re Soaking in Her, Entrails 2: The Gouging, Face Peelers 1-4 and 6, The Hacksawist, Gut Bomb 2003) as morally uplifting, and then describes at length his latest opus The Tool Belt Killer.  He sells “Belty,” the rich son of the town’s mayor and Strauss’ apparent Mary Sue, as the hero of the film.  Somehow Viking strength, omelettes, a love interest and attempts at product placement feature into the film.  This is in every way better than “Jock Squad” – the premise is better, the opening relatively realistic (Scharpling argues against Hollywood being socially responsible, leading to Strauss’ defending it via the worst possible examples) and the buildup more bizarre overall.

The Tool Belt Killer, which seems to be The Driller Killer but more Lowe’s-centric, is something I’d like to see.  As with many S&W routines, it ends with the Jon Wurster character threatening Scharpling’s life.  How?  Watch the upcoming documentary Kill the DJ to find out.

Philly Boy Roy (July 11, 2006) – Philly Boy Roy is a recurring character within the S&W framework.  He appears often enough that it’s one of the most recognizable S&W routines – hell, PBR threatens to swallow 2007 where it stands.  This outing features the manipulative Roy Jr. convincing his father that he’s psychic, leading to PBR believing that he has switched bodies with his son.  His son then spends money on a mini-catamaran while PBR gets caught smoking while attending summer school.  PBR also wins the Running of the Cheesesteaks (“little people” ride four-wheelers and swing shellacked cheesesteaks at race participants), leading to PBR eating sixty-five pounds of his 200-pound cheesesteak prize in a day.

I’m not even going to explain the backstory behind Laser Allin.  Yes, there is mention of laser shows set to songs like “Expose Yourself to Kids,” “I Don’t Give a S***” (the lack of profanity on The Best Show is such that “S***” is actually pronounced “s”) and “Watch Me Kill.”  It all sounds so stupid, but the PBR guy is damn near endearing even when talking about GG Allin.  I can’t explain why someone who burned down a Quizno’s franchise is appealing to any degree, but he is and I’ll leave it at that.

Disc Two
Andy from Lake Newbridge (October 18, 2005) – Another relatively weak routine from S&W.  Andy from Lake Newbridge is a carp.  He talks shit about Aquaman, hinting that “Aquadouche” and Namor the Sub-Mariner are a thing.  Andy also crashes on Aquaman’s pad when Aquaman isn’t there.  Andy’s life is like a more literal version of Spongebob Squarepants, Andy fronting a band called The Hey Now and phoning through a headset.  One can just see the fish-based jokes in one’s head, and they’re prevalent here.  Scharpling actually ends the interview by picking a fight with Andy.  It’s not much of a sketch, but that seems to be the standard with the first track on both discs.

Tornado Todd (April 5, 2006) – “Wait…whuuut?” is one of the catchphrases familiar to Scharpling & Wurster routines.  It doesn’t sound like much, but you have to hear Jon Wurster say it.  Here he plays Tornado Todd Hutchins of non-profit organization LifeChanges.  Tornado Todd, who appeared on a previous edition of The Best Show, shills his line of products – Grand Theft Auto ripoff Pimp City (Todd is the voice of the rail-lovin’ ferret Pippin), dyed, scentless weed called Faux Nuggs and Tornado Todd’s Sorority Skank Patrol Volumes 1 through 17.

Tornado Todd, having survived being in a tornado with only minor injuries, has gone back to illicit business dealings.  At one point Hutchins blackmails Scharpling, Scharpling acting the part of Pimp City‘s Ving Rhames/Hulk Hogan gestalt Big Money under threat of his alleged “sick act” appearing in Tornado Todd’s Sickest Celebrity Sex Tape (guest panelists include Danny Bonaduce.)  It makes a nice change-up from the usual “Scharpling is dumbfounded by his callers” routine, although it ends in the usual “you gonna get killed” fashion.  This time, Scharpling faces the wrath of dismembering Siberian Yuri.  The best routine thus far on The Art of the Slap.

Postal Slap Fight (April 18, 2006) – The most outlandish routine on The Art of the Slap and one that veers off into many different directions.  Keith Garfinkle is the blackmailing nephew of United States Postmaster General Edmond T. Garfinkle (not the real Postmaster General, by the way – S&W routines aren’t supposed to be that realistic, after all.)

Garfinkle also steps into the nonagon for the Newbridge Redfaces of the Northeastern Slap Fight League, has won many Wayne Knight lookalike competitions and is very ill-informed.  He’s also seen President Baseball and ties that into why Dick Cheney (“Lon Chaney” to Keith Garfinkel) is being scouted by Major League Baseball.  Throwing that many disparate references into the routine shouldn’t work, but somehow it does and tops even Tornado Todd in its ridiculousness.  Surprisingly, Scharpling isn’t threatened with bodily harm here.

Bonus Disc
Mother 13…The First Rock Band on Mt. Everest! (May 2/9, 2006) – S&W refer to past routines a lot.  Mother 13 first appeared on a 2002 episode shilling their album on RCA and their appearance on the Earthlink/Pringles Summer Slam Jam.  Kern Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Summit Cola and a longtime Scharpling & Wurster running joke, have convinced Mother 13 to get back together and climb Mount Everest with assorted random music figures – the Polyphonic Spree, Buddy Guy, Art Alexakis of Everclear, Bruce Springsteen stalwart Clarence Clemons and blink-182′s Travis Barker.  Other assorted hangers-on include Trent L. Strauss and Darren Cook (better than his “brother” Dane Cook since Dane Cook is real and all.)  The objective is to play a concert at the summit of Everest, which Mother 13 lead singer Corey Harris gets ready for by climbing a rock-climbing wall drunk and doing a lot of situps.  He’s totally cut!

As expected, most of the people attempting the Mount Everest climb “die” – the Trent L. Strauss character somehow survives (although not on this CD set) and Corey Harris manages to tell the sordid details of his Mount Everest concert to Scharpling.

I found “Mother 13…The First Rock Band on Mt. Everest!” suspended disbelief to such a degree that it didn’t work comedically.  It’s “epic,” but the concept of having anyone climb a mountain with an entourage for a publicity stunt is too unbelievable even by S&W standards.  The two-part saga is overlong and it’s hard to believe any of the musicians mentioned in the routine would even bother to support a minor “new rock” band, never mind climb Mount Everest with them.  ”Mother 13…The First Rock Band on Mt. Everest!” has a good first half (the May 2 show), but that May 9 show just falls off a cliff.

Wait, I don’t mean that.  Uhh…Summit Cola roxx!  SOG?

Amazon.com does not currently list The Art of the Slap.  For more information about Scharpling and Wurster visit www.stereolaffs.com, Fotpedia and The Best Show playlists at WFMU.