The name is among the most difficult to pronounce, let alone to spell, in the business. But the mug and the shtick are among the most memorable. Zach Galifianakis is finally getting his due. It’s about time, too.

Galifianakis is the comedy catalyst behind the biggest surprise film hit of the summer to date, The Hangover, which has been riding atop the box office charts for the last two weeks and taking out such contenders as Up and Star Trek in the process.

The flick, a twisted cross between Sideways and Superbad, is the deconstruction of a bachelor weekend in Vegas gone horribly awry. Galifianakis is at the epicentre of this mayhem, playing the groom’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, a socially challenged eccentric – not-so-affectionately dubbed “Fat Jesus” – who inadvertently spikes the drinks of his co-celebrants with the date-rape drug Rohypnol rather than the intended Ecstasy.

Bad things happen. Hysterical things also happen. Juvenile though it may be, viewers of most ages will invariably split a gut lapping up the antics of Galifianakis and his co-stars – not exactly household names, either.

Galifianakis’s sudden ascent will come as no surprise to those who caught his solo show at Just for Laughs two years ago. Think Steven Wright. But more bent. Far more bent. Like Wright, Zach is a master of the Zen-like chestnut.

To wit: “I’ve always wanted to own a maternity shop. I’d call it: We’re F@#ked!” Or, “Just saw the Spin Doctors in concert. They were covering their own material.” Or, “At what age do you tell a highway it was adopted? At 7, I think, before he says I don’t look like the Kiwanis Club.” Or, “The only time it’s cool to yell: ‘I have diarrhea!’ is when you’re playing Scrabble.”

A side order of Galifianakis is available for your dining and dancing pleasure, Saturday at 10 p.m. on The Comedy Network. Galifianakis pops into the second part of The Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour, showcasing other equally edgy wits like Patton Oswalt, Eugene Mirman, Brian Posehn, David Cross and Maria Bamford. Actually, it’s more like anarchy than comedy, but it will

titillate the non-squeamish.

In last week’s opening instalment of The Comedians of Comedy, viewers got a taste of Galifianakis’s bizarro mindset: “I think the sign Slow Children Playing is just so mean.”

In the June 20 segment, Galifianakis shows up, playing his dim, identical twin bro Seth. Like Zach, Seth hails from that comedy hotbed of North Carolina. But unlike Zach, Seth is something of a rube. Yet like Zach, he will elicit huge guffaws.

Equally surreal is the unhinged Mirman, who sends out this sort of memo to himself: “Try not to wake up on fire.”

Bamford, another Just for Laughs alum who attributes her woes to her Midwestern roots and former high-school classmates, still battles

mental-health issues: “I’m not so much depressed as paralyzed by hope.”

Then there’s Posehn, who, at 6 feet 7 inches and weighing around 300 pounds, realizes that his stature prevents him from doing many things. Like “going night-digging, saying ‘cute kid,’ sneaking up on people or wearing a cape and a mask.” He has a point.

Not to be outdone is tiny-terror Oswalt, the show’s host, who tries to come to terms with his issues:

“My nerdiness is now getting in the way of my geekiness. That’s how pathetic my life has become. I was thinking the other day what would I do with a time machine: would I watch the fall or the birth of a great civilization, or find out one of the great mysteries, like who was Jack the Ripper? … No, if I’m really honest with myself, the first thing I would do with a time machine is go back to the summer of 1993, and kill George Lucas with a shovel … and stop him from making the prequels.”

Now that’s noble.

The Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubador airs Saturday at 10 p.m. on the Comedy Network.


Bummer: Comics Rhys Darby, Jeffrey Ross and Robert Schimmel have had to bow out from participating in next month’s Just for Laughs festival. The acerbic Schimmel had been slated to perform his one-man-show Cheaters Get Cancer at Centaur Theatre, while Darby, the delightfully anal co-star of Flight of the Conchords, was supposed to headline in the Late Nite Down Under show. Ross had been booked for the All-Star gala at Théâtre St. Denis. But the good news for Ross fans is that his stand-up special will air June 27 on The Comedy Network.



A clarification on my June 18 column on the Montreal Fringe Festival: Jeremy Hechtman has been working at the festival since its inception in 1991 and has been its chief the last 13 years. The Montreal Fringe was founded by Kris Kieren and Nick Morra, who ran it for a few years before moving to Edmonton.


source : http://www.montrealgazette.com