shitty the riddler and pat thornton
I have no idea what time it is. We’re in the home stretch for sure. I’ve taken three of the high stool chairs and placed them side by side which has made a little bed for me. I’ve put my vest down as a pillow and I have laid down and closed my eyes… and woke up sometime later to the sound of Kayla Lorette’s laughter. What a lovely sound. What have I missed? What’s going on? Where am I? Kevin Sorbo?
Kevin Sorbo is still eating garbage. He is eating hair. He is living in the ocean with the bees in his head and his mouth. He is being hired for shitty jobs, he is being fired from the shitty jobs for being shitty. He is neglecting his children because raw sewage, garbage water, green bins and dumpsters filled with trash are just too alluring to be able to resist. He is trying to get invited to Tit Night to no avail. He is engaged in many complex plots to make people look up at the sky so that he might have the opportunity to lick their chins. He is celebrating Chinuary. He is obsessing over Jay Leno’s magnificent expansive chin and he’s still the King of the Woods.
Boston Pizza is in the woods. We still have a nine year old president, Rap Grimace makes the occasional come back- along with sporadic references to Mustard Andrew, Luba Goy and Marmalade. OH, and how can I forget the BRUTAL and INTENSE Little Mosque burns!! Yeeowch. We were also all introduced to Amelia Earfart- whose best line was: “Wow. Silent but deadly. I didn’t even hear that!” At TWENTY TWO hours Pat Thornton, who has done his stand up standing up since 6pm on Monday evening, finally continues his set sitting down. He has passed his goal of $10,000 with TWO HOURS still to go. This is the countdown. The Comedy Bar is filling up with people for the last push of the show, the writers are filling the stage with jokes so that Pat is able to finish the set continuously. I have to give up two of my chairs, which forces me awake, although I am still zoning in and out quite a bit. My stomach can’t handle anymore sugar… so I stay away from my Swedish Berries.
I start to wonder whether it is more or less difficult for someone to perform for 24 hours straight or for someone to watch someone else perform for 24 hours. I mean, surely the person performing has a task to accomplish, they have to hold the audience captive, they have to talk, they have to be at least some semblance of funny… I just have to sit in a chair and keep my eyes open. Yet… I wonder how much of Pat’s ability to trundle through is the adrenaline of performance that is keeping him going… something that I don’t have. I muse. I wonder. I listen. I zone out. I catch myself. I remember where I am. Didn’t Halle Balle have a bum ear at one point? … Oh yeah.
Shitty the Riddler comes back with vengeance. Shitty the Riddler jokes pour in and then morph… into shitty the everything jokes. An hour and a half of formulaic jokes- Shitty the Riddler, Shitty Superheroes. Shitty Nine Year old President. Shitty Novelists. Shitty movies. Shitty Children’s TV shows. Shitty Kevin Sorbo. Shitty Rob Ford- and every once and awhile, a Movember Rob Ford throw back, just because we all love the way that Pat yells, “ROB!!! YOU GROW A MOOOOOO-STACHE!” Really, who can blame us? He always musters the energy required to make that bit utterly worth it.
Shitty the Riddler is the star of the end of the show. Sorbo has still been the overall through line, the constant source of our glee and our burns, but Shitty the Riddler is dominating him right now. He’s called Batman on speaker phone, he’s bought a unitard all covered in exclamation points, he’s bought a unitard with a question mark over his crotch, he’s told terrible riddles, he’s forgotten his lines, he’s confused himself—quite frankly, if there was a shitty thing that The Riddler could possibly do, it’s most likely that he did it at Comedy Bar.
The room erupted into huge cheers at 6pm when Pat stopped immediately after having performed for 24 hours straight and raising OVER $11,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Mark Andrada turned on the tunes and those who were able started the last and most epic of the dance parties. I think I kind of bopped along. I mostly wanted to fall over. But, it was joyous. Triumphant. What an amazing feat for Pat Thornton, who has proven that he has incredible comedic fortitude and that Kevin Sorbo is undoubtedly poised for a huge comeback, and by “Comeback” I mean, it’s very possible that hosting Sunday Night Live is in his very near future.
