A heckler at the Comedy Club on State’s screening of the “Doug Loves movies” podcast belted, “Are you having a good Hempfest?” to kick off the show Saturday night. The show was an amicable, but ultimately too zoned out, taping of the popular podcast “Doug Loves Movies.” It brings in many of the biggest names in comedy and film to a movie-themed panel/quiz show. Doug Benson, a comedian based out of LA, hosts the show. He has released marijuana-centric comedy pieces like album Gateway Doug and the documentary “Super High Me.”
At around 4:20 p.m., the air was thick with vaporizer smoke and the club’s two-drink minimum getting the late afternoon audience a little rowdier than they normally would be before five. The show started with Benson sweetly ambling up to the stage with the show’s prerecorded theme playing.
When the mentioned heckler made his inquiry, Benson, immediately said how uncomfortable hecklers make him. He directly asked the heckler to not make trouble. Then, almost as an afterthought, he laughed and said yes, he was having a good Hempfest. This interaction describes Benson in a nutshell. Although this story could portray him to look like a jerk, he’s not. He’s a professional comedian, whose dazed persona masks his thick skin and his keen ability to deal with an audience quickly and efficiently.
The screening Saturday afternoon borrowed that night’s headliner and opening act (comedians Tommy Johnagin and Chris Cubas, respectively,) as well as special guest “Mark Wahlberg” (comedian Dick Van Kirk, doing an impression of the actor which is a mainstay of the LA show).
As the show began, that same professional attitude remained, at least for a while. Johnagin and Cubas both seem to have come in with what appeared to be jokes already worked out about movies they just saw (although it sounded slightly stilted in a panel environment, it led to some good banter), but the real MVP of the panel was Dick Van Kirk’s “Mark Wahlberg.” Opening with a Wisconsin specific pair of jokes about House on the Rock, he then went straight into playfully messing with the audience and the rest of the panel about understanding their jokes.
Immediately Van Kirk was able to tap into the room’s energy, and find a playful rhythm within the panel. This led to a solid 30 minutes or so of good back and forth, mostly headed by Van Kirk and Benson’s chemistry (as well as their obvious experience with the show’s format), allowing clear roles to form among the four panelists.
However, roughly halfway through the energy that carried the show so far began to run out, and the show’s marijuana and alcohol infused atmosphere began to take its toll on the show. This corresponded roughly with the start of the show’s game portions, in which they played three movie trivia games. With each game, the panel’s enthusiasm began to wean and the audience began to grow more and more restless. The show, which normally runs about an hour in LA, was stretched here to roughly 100 minutes, so the decrease in energy was understandable. However, it didn’t make any of the increasing pauses or shouts from the audience any more entertaining.
At one point Benson joked that a shouting audience member didn’t realize it’s a comedy show, and must think that the four people on stage are just jerks holding microphones. Although they certainly aren’t jerks, the sentiment was not entirely far off; the room’s heady energy decreased to the point where those on stage really weren’t so different than those in the crowd.
