The Imponderables
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Imponderables is a Canadian sketch comedy troupe, hailing from Hamilton, Ontario but now based mainly in Toronto. The troupe was featured in the 2005 CBC TV special Sketch with Kevin McDonald and won the 2005 Canadian Comedy Award for Best Sketch Troupe, which they were also nominated for in 2004 and 2006.
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[edit] Biography and history
In March 2004, The Imponderables - Dave, Eric, Jon, and Tony - made Canadian Comedy History being the first independent comedy troupe in Second City's 30 year history to headline their own show on the prestigious mainstage. As a result The Imponderables were winners of the 2005 Canadian Comedy Award for Best Sketch Troupe.
Notable appearances include the New Years Eve Comedy Extravaganza at Massey Hall, Talk of the Fest at Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival the legendary Horseshoe Tavern (opening up for the Rheostatics),The Chicago Improv Festival, two episodes of the Toronto Show, and as headliners for the 1st Annual Toronto Sketch Festival. Most recently, The Imponderables appeared on the Sketch with Kevin McDonald show on the CBC. Also, they are the resident sketch troupe for the popular Sketch Comedy Lounge at the Rivoli in Toronto where they can be seen performing the first Tuesday of every month.
"The Imponderables have won frequent comparisons to the Kids in the Hall, mainly because they are young, charismatic, and often absurd...while the comparison is flattering, it's a little off. The Imponderables are more like SCTV and Monty Python. Like SCTV, their humour springs from the broad, perfectly honed characters and, like Monty Python; their comedy has an obtuse point of view punctuated by manic physicality." Andrew Clark, the Toronto Star.
The Imponderables dive in and explore the basic characteristics of being human – namely the practice of self identification; specifically from the viewpoint of a white, sub-urban male generation, finally cut loose from their parents hold and looking to establish a life on their own.
[edit] Who they are
Any accurate description of the Imponderables should start and finish with who they actually are, which is, four middle class twenty to thirty year old, straight, white guys. The most boring and normal demographic to ever graze suburbia. Their pre adult years echo the following sentiments from rock star Ben Folds:
Let me tell y’all what it’s like
Being male middle class and white
So intense that I can’t explain
All alone in my white boy pain
These are four kids unaffected by any sort of prejudice or privilege, the kind generally set aside for the rich and poor. Their position in the spectrum of life has pushed them to focus on the things everyone suffers from, rather than anything specific to their own culture. Besides, it’s hard to sympathize with a race who over the years remained victorious in the face of war, racism, slavery, and abject poverty.
Born in the blue-collar city of Hamilton, Ontario, where the steel industry was king and pollution his army, The Imponderables grew up watching the city core deteriorate from the suburban wasteland they grew up in. This was the quintessential lunch bucket town that breeds irreverence and almost demands political incorrectness.
From these dirty roots, it is easy to see why The Imponderables didn’t fit in, and perceived their dark world through warped, x-ray glasses.
Life is such a complicated and gnarly thing that sometimes the only solution is to reduce it to a joke. – Paul Quarrington
Knowing that from pain comes comedy, the Imponderables realize that great moments of loss, sadness and tragedy can be humorous, and sometimes, the only way to deal with this unjust world they can’t comprehend is to laugh.
[edit] So are they really?
DAVE BRENNAN
Dave is to homework and rules as cats are to bathtubs and dogs. This exercise of determining his own POV, proved exhausting and tiresome (to editors awaiting Dave’s final Word document). Why? Because Dave – being the youngest of the four – is the anti-authoritarian. He despises constructs and rules, and truly likes to live life by his own rhythm. While the others were busy wasting away at post-secondary education, Dave was already working local stand-up clubs on a nightly basis – at age 16! Dave’s perception of the world is that of the guy who may not always know what he wants, but definitely, beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, knows exactly what he doesn’t want. It is notable to mention that at age 7, Dave resolved that he would have to quit Boy Scouts, as the weekly meetings moved to Thursday nights, thus interfering with his Cosby Show.
ERIC TOTH
Eric loved school. The only thing he didn’t like about it was the work, the learning, the books, and especially the teachers. Home was no escape, being raised by two parents who were also teachers. It should come as no surprise then that this constant “schooling” led this class clown to master the art of disruption; breaking any silences he could (be it at the blackboard or dinner table) and every encounter with authority served as a setup to a brewing punch-line. It is perhaps in this very domesticated environment he fostered his view of The Ordinary Guy – the guy who watches ordinary TV, after an ordinary meal after an ordinary day at work – who is only shaken by “fear.” A “fear” induced by the 6 o’clock news’ car accidents, diseases, wars, and death – subjects which Eric cannot help but find fuckin’ hilarious!
JON SMITH
Jon is the bricks and mortar of The Imponderables. He is the blue-collared humanist of the group. Being the son of a carpenter and a nurse opened him to many different perspectives on humans – wholesome, real and always bettering The Team. His astute perception of people came from his mother's nursing: listening, watching, and learning. This may perhaps be the reason Jon is so at home dealing with dark subjects as death and disease because they are just another day on the job. For Jon, it isn’t so much the car accident that just took place across the street, but the way the paramedic took that last sip of coffee before "rushing heroically into action."
TONY LOMBARDO
The child of immigrant Italian farmers, his point of view is that of the outsider; the uprooted; the one who doesn’t belong; the stranger in a strange place, confused, often by misunderstanding, and miscommunication.
His family life was filled with having to explain things to his parents, who spoke little English, especially why certain English jokes were “funny.” Conversely, his social life was full of translating on the schoolyard, hilarious Italian “barzellete” his grandfather would tell him into manageable, somewhat lost-in-translation, English jokes. Perhaps this is why he much loves word play, and the interaction of language and communication.
[edit] The Imponderables point of view
The white, suburban male comedy of The Imponderables explores the themes of identity and self-image. The well-honed characters define themselves by what they own/collect, who their friends are and what their friends do, and the language with which they convey that self-definition.
The Imponderables present a comedic point-of-view that entertains this exercise in futility. Because the audience is privy to the fact there are no real answers, they can watch the characters, set themselves to suffer and fail, in a quest that is no more futile, as it is hilarious to play out.
How accurate is the image that one has of oneself (as a man, or a cop, a father, a lady’s man, a frat-boy etc)? Is this image at all intelligible, or is it ridiculous, loose, chaotic and imponderable?
There is something to be said for playing with these definitions, binaries and boundaries and while at the same time realizing that life doesn’t have to be so serious and well defined. Instead of being disparaging about the difficulty in defining, quantifying, understanding things (including oneself), the way many post modern artists are, the Imponderables have an appreciation for the chaos and the quest.
In each exploration the self-definition fails, and is seemingly done for nothing. But the audience realizes that this self-definition is in its essence extremely useful. It is done for the sake of doing! Because that’s what living as a human being is about.
The audience basks in the humour of this because everyone can relate to it and it’s redundant normalcy. The fact that there is a strong element of compassion and respect for these characters, even as we laugh at them, allows us to do so more freely. And we laugh at the dark humour (kids getting run over, jumping off bridges, drunk police officers) because we know what side we’re on, and we know what side you’re on; the side of accepting that life can be really silly and hilarious and knowing that we can laugh about it without being nasty.
