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Brick Wall Comedy

Comedy Now!: Ron James - Up & Down in Shaky Town

Ron James

CTV · 1998 · 1 h 30 min

A Canadian comic details his complete failure to conquer Hollywood.

Ron James spent the early 1990s chasing the American sitcom dream, an endeavor that left him broke and doing manual labor in Los Angeles. He returned to Canada and spun that failure into a hyper-verbal, highly specific hour of storytelling. Rather than leaning on broad setups, he contrasts his childhood fantasies of buying a mail-order submarine with the grim reality of digging Robert Urich’s swimming pool just to stay afloat.

Aired in 1998 as an early episode of CTV’s Comedy Now!, the set functioned as a hard career pivot. James had spent a decade doing improv with The Second City before his lean California years, and he used this televised hour to reintroduce himself as a solo performer. The broadcast resonated enough with Canadian audiences that the network ran it on New Year’s Day for the next seven years.

The set list

1 bit

  1. Growing up looking at the American dream through the eyes of a 12-year-old kid ordering a two-man submarine for $11 from the back of a DC comic book

    Nostalgic and self-deprecating storytelling contrasting childhood illusions of America with the grim reality of trying to make it in Hollywood

How it plays

Tone
Satirical, witty, and affably subversive
On stage
Kinetic, physical, and observant everyman monologist with sharp wit and a distinctly Canadian viewpoint
Pace
Kinetic energy
About
The American Dream, Surviving in Los Angeles, Audition failures and industry rejection, Canadian identity abroad

What the critics said

Critically acclaimed; Sid Adilman of the Toronto Star designated it as 'one of the best television events of 1998.'

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: gooent.com, thetvdb.com, imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, theglobeandmail.com, ronjames.ca, apt613.ca.

Backstory

Adapted from his 1994 one-man stage show detailing his real-life, three-year struggle as a Canadian actor attempting to make it in Los Angeles amidst auditions, unemployment, and accumulating debt

Details

Released
Runtime
1 h 30 min
Where
CTV
Topics
After
True North (2016)

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