A Celebration of Sketchiness

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A Celebration of Sketchiness

Local comedians celebrated their own, hunted werewolves, and gave birth to the antichrist at Saturday's Sketchiest Sketch Show.

By • Photos by Corbin Smith

Photo by Corbin Smith

Never accuse Toronto sketch troupe Approximately 3 Peters of not giving back to the comedy community.

Winners of the peer-voted Sketchiest Sketch Troupe Award at last November’s Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, the Peters organized the second edition of the Sketchiest Sketch Show, which took place at Comedy Bar on Saturday.

According to Ian MacIntyre (the only member of the Peters not named Peter), the troupe organized the show not just to put money back into the prize—which is a cash award worth about as much as a few cases of beer—but also to help show off the breadth of Toronto’s burgeoning sketch scene. To do that, they drafted 2010 Sketchiest Sketch Troupe winners Smells Like the ’80s and the Templeton Philharmonic, a two-woman tag team that won Best Comedy Duo at the recent LA Comedy Fest.

The result was an orgy of weirdness that featured everything from religiously bigoted werewolf hunters to a woman preparing to give birth to the antichrist, to a crazed stationary salesman on an ill-fated visit to Medieval Times—he brings his own sword, and things go downhill from there—played to a full house of both fans and fellow comedians. MacIntyre says that it was easy to select the two troupes that shared the stage with them on Saturday.

“We wanted to invite Smells Like The ’80s, obviously. They’d won the award before, plus they’re old friends and really funny guys,” he said. “Templeton Philharmonic I’d only met at last year’s Sketch Comedy Festival, but they’re really funny.”

According to Templeton’s Gwynne Phillips, Toronto’s comedy scene is particularly strong right now, as evidenced by the dominance of local acts at the LA Comedy Fest.

“A lot of [people] from Toronto were down there: Falcon Powder, Ladystache, Matt O’Brien, Julia Hladkowicz,” she said.

Phillips and MacIntyre both say that the scene’s strength is due in no small part to the success of the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival.

“Toronto Sketch Fest is amazing,” she said. “If you put it up against other sketch festivals, it stands up as being one of the best festivals for networking and workshops and meeting people. It’s really well organized. Toronto’s [comedy scene] is just really great right now.”

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