FUNNY AS HELL hosted by JON DORE, airing tonight (Friday, March 11), on HBO Canada, 9:25 pm.
Whatever else happens in his career, Jon Dore will always go down in TV history as the first stand-up comic to appear on the Conan show.
That happened, of course, last November, after a certain high-profile TV talk show war.
“I’d been in talks with Conan’s booker for a long time, back at The Tonight Show.” Dore shoots me one of his deadpan looks. “You know that Conan hosted that, right? It’s another story, but it’s pretty interesting.”
Since that spot on Conan’s much-watched opening week – he ended the set by taking off his shirt and revealing a drawing of a penis on his chest – Dore says things haven’t changed significantly.
“I’m still auditioning for shows, travelling around, telling jokes,” he says. “It’s made it a little easier to get booked into some clubs, but I’m still the same old guy.”
Now based in L.A., where he frequently hangs out with fellow Canadian comic Levi MacDougall (Important Things With Demetri Martin), Dore’s in town to promote his new six-part stand-up comedy series, which debuts on HBO Canada tonight.
Funny As Hell was taped last year at Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival, with Dore hosting a lineup of some of some great alternative acts like Hannibal Buress, Jim Jeffries, Garfunkel & Oates, TJ Miller and Chelsea Peretti.
At times, the comics are pretty crude. In the first two episodes, there’s liberal use of both the N-word and the C-word.
“Really, this is the way we should be talking, as human beings,” jokes Dore. In fact, when JFL first pitched him the idea, one of the selling points was that the acts wouldn’t be censored in any way.
The tapings were done as is, with no reshoots. If Dore or anyone else flubbed a line, it stayed.
“You usually see the galas on CBC,” says Dore, “but there’s way more to the festival, like the Alternative shows and the Nasty Shows. Up until now, these haven’t been represented.”
Dore says the stand-up community is supportive in Los Angeles, with many comedy rooms resembling Rivoli’s AltDotComedy Lounge or Jo-Anna Downey’s Spirits night here in Toronto. Incidentally, in a few weeks, he’s hosting the April 2 night of the Rivoli’s annual Raising The Roof fundraising weekend, with fellow comics Arthur Simeon, Steve Patterson and Rebecca Koehler.
Dore has a girlfriend now, whom he calls “a free spirit, amazing, genuinely amazing. She’s probably the funniest person I’ve ever met.”
Currently, he and his writing partner Rory Scovel are writing a pilot for IFC, the same cable station that aired The Jon Dore Show in the U.S.
“It’s about two undercover cops who pose as drama teachers to expose the drug dealer of a small town high school,” he says. “It gives us the opportunity to have fun with high school culture, drug culture, plus there’s a love story built in.”
Two male drama teachers… a love story? Are they both straight?
“Yes, but one of them decides his undercover character has to be flamboyantly gay, and the other takes issue with how he’s portraying it. So we get to have some fun with that, too.”
