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It's So Sketchy, It Hooked Up With My Roommate!
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There are hundreds of sketch comedy shows in LA, but this one is definitely not to be missed. Laist was lucky enough to catch a preview of Charlie and the Chocolate Sunday Show at the ACME Comedy Theatre on La Brea this Sunday. ACME is famously known as the stage where comedians such as Adam Carolla, Wayne Brady, Alex Borstein, Sean Hayes and others perfected their comedic chops. It's refreshing to see that the comedians in its Bravo Company are still coming up with original material.
After a bumpy first half and a very loud Gene Wilder impersonation, Charlie really got rolling after intermission. The second half of this show rivals anything SNL or Mad TV throw up on your cable channel. There were plenty of situational sketches (my slutty roommate, my ice-skating wife) and some media humor at the expense of Ahnold, but the writing got much cleverer in Part 2. Our favorite sketches were two that played some quirky language games, including Did You Hear Something by Jim Newman and Brian Habicht, and Do You Know What I Mean? by Jeremy Saville and Habicht. The latter, where a group of poker-playing guys try to convince a friend to stop saying "do you know what I mean?" at the end of every sentence, was very cute. Our favorite line was "Yes, I know what showering SIGNIFIES."
The entire feel of the show was professional, from music to lights to the scene transitions. And for the Strasberg snobs amongst us, ACME's acting is very polished - and it really is acting, not standup. (They can sing, too.) We loved Tim Harrington's rendition of John Cougar Mellencamp, and also lost it for Ryce Hetherington and the drop-dead-funny Robert Moon. Charlie and the Chocolate Sunday Show opens next Sunday, August 31. Tickets are available by calling (323) 525-0202. If you've been a sketch skeptic, this one will make you a believer.
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