Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Toddler Stand-Up

Last Saturday we went to a really cool birthday party. The son of one of my friends was turning six. She runs an improv theater down on Fairfax, and they held the party at the theater, Bang. Her son, Daniel, wanted a "Lego, Practical Joke" Birthday Party. And so it was.

During the party a professional improv dude, who is so handsome, so hilarious and so great with kids you cannot believe he does not have a show of his own, set up the stage like a stand-up club. He held a mike and encouraged each kid to come up, perch on the stool, and tell a joke. If they told it, they got a piece of cany. If it was really good they got those goofy Groucho Marx glasses--for keeps. The birthday boy called up the guests for their moment in the spotlight.

The jokes, by and large, were pretty bad. Which only made them more hilarious. They did involve things crossing the road, but what would happen on the other side was anybody's guess. There was a lot of knock knocking, but the punch lines, almost without exception, were mangled, forgotten, or completely made up and nonsensical. Which, again, only made them more funny. My boys are shy. Theo went second to last--and kind of made sense. And then, finally, Benji, the three-year-old taking the stage at the six year old birthday party.

He climbed onto the stage, and shimmied up the huge stool, which was taller than he was. His mind was filled with knock knock jokes and things crossing the road. Bananas, oranges and lots of poo poo. So Ezra, the comedic superstar, started the knock knock joke.

"Knock Knock," said Benji into the mike.
"Who's there," said Ezra, and the whole crowd.
"Orange," said Benji (leftover from a lot of the knock knock jokes which all involved mangling the classic fruit joke)
"Orange who?"
He started going faster, with total confidence.
"Knock knock," said Benji.
"Who's there," said Ezra and the whole room, faster, and with confidence, following Benji's lead.
"Banana," said Benji. Tricky. Smart. Where was he going with all this.
"Banana who?"
Even faster.
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Tree"
"Tree who?"
Then Benji broke down in tears into the microphone, perched on top of this giant stool, with a spotlight on him in this improve theater and cried,
"I don't know what I am saying..."
And he sobbed, jumped off the stool, jumped of the stage, and ran out into the darkness to me.

Pretty cute. And pretty funny.

1 comment:

jecca said...

Oh, that would have been me. I'm still quoted as telling and endless story with lots of 'ands' to keep it going, ending with 'and, and, and, I don't know....' I hope he's recovered from his stage fright. Ruth's presenting in Chinese at school on Friday. When she did it in English a fortnight ago we practised and practised and it was still inaudible as she twisted her dress and cocked her head in agony... I'm not up to helping her practise the Chinese so don't know how it'll go, but probably need one of those huge furry mikes on a long long pole if I'm to catch it on video!!!