When a comic becomes a parent, people often joke that they did it just for the new material. Kurt Braunohler recently became a dad, but his current hour isn't a typical run-through of the usual observations and complaints about fatherhood. Braunohler's reflections on his own childhood were filled with insanely absurd memories of breastfeeding, underage smoking and several half siblings that were decades apart in age. On the other hand, his thoughts on having his own child were sweet, yet also unexpectedly dark at times. Together, these two complementary halves blended to create a beautifully hilarious encapsulation of parenting from both perspectives.
Having said that, Braunohler's hour wasn't completely based on his recent life milestone. It also included a lot of hard-hitting jokes on completely random subjects. His rapid-fire bit where he just listed weird trivia facts he thought about in order to try not to finish during sex was so funny that a man in the front row begged him to keep doing jokes with the same premise for the entire remainder of the show. His joke about how he wants to start a club for people against dads, because most Trump supporters are white dads, involved so many repetitions of the word "dads" that no one could stop themselves from being enchanted by his joyful silliness. Best of all, he had a joke that was just about a house filled with 120,000 bees. Explaining the joke would not do it justice, and the words "120,000 bees" paint their own wonderful picture.
The opening comics for this show were also fantastic. Host Tracy Hamilton proved she's definitely one to watch in the Toronto comedy scene by charming everyone with her sharp wit and charismatic cuteness. The comparison of her anxiety to an overenthusiastic employee who takes on work that wasn't even assigned was spot-on, as was her one-liner about how she looks like a substitute teacher. Similarly, Braunohler's American opener Chris Thayer was very witty as well. His joke about how brushing your teeth is really just "polishing your bones so people will like you" was as haunting as it was funny, while his story about realizing he was wearing sunglasses in the middle of sex was just flat-out ridiculous.
Having said that, Braunohler's hour wasn't completely based on his recent life milestone. It also included a lot of hard-hitting jokes on completely random subjects. His rapid-fire bit where he just listed weird trivia facts he thought about in order to try not to finish during sex was so funny that a man in the front row begged him to keep doing jokes with the same premise for the entire remainder of the show. His joke about how he wants to start a club for people against dads, because most Trump supporters are white dads, involved so many repetitions of the word "dads" that no one could stop themselves from being enchanted by his joyful silliness. Best of all, he had a joke that was just about a house filled with 120,000 bees. Explaining the joke would not do it justice, and the words "120,000 bees" paint their own wonderful picture.
The opening comics for this show were also fantastic. Host Tracy Hamilton proved she's definitely one to watch in the Toronto comedy scene by charming everyone with her sharp wit and charismatic cuteness. The comparison of her anxiety to an overenthusiastic employee who takes on work that wasn't even assigned was spot-on, as was her one-liner about how she looks like a substitute teacher. Similarly, Braunohler's American opener Chris Thayer was very witty as well. His joke about how brushing your teeth is really just "polishing your bones so people will like you" was as haunting as it was funny, while his story about realizing he was wearing sunglasses in the middle of sex was just flat-out ridiculous.
