REVIEW: Ed the Sock getting game back
Yes, Children of the ‘80s, it’s true – we’re old.
But if we are at all like Ed the Sock was on Wednesday night at Union Hall, maybe, just maybe, we are still relevant – not to mention all these years later able to appreciate good, honest comedy.
As part of Ed’s current “War on Stupid” tour, the MuchMusic Generation who fell in love with this anthropomorphic hosiery (voiced by puppeteer Steven Kerzner) in the 1990s got treated to a solid, if overlong grab-bag of goodies. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was going on. The show jumped all over place with little rhyme or reason.
Ed took us down memory-lane video clip flashback trips of historical highlights from his career on Canada’s video network (when they still played videos), and others. He sung spur-of-the-moment politically-incorrect audience-participation holiday songs like Mall Santa and Eff You It’s Christmas. The sock even described the state of the Chieftain Motel in Squamish BC, with pictorial evidence (you might want to stay elsewhere when visiting that town). He riffed along with random out-of-fashion off-colour jokes mixed in with standard stand up comedic material, and more serious cultural commentary. While as a whole the parts ran a bit slipshod, time will get rid of the kinks the more shows Ed can get under his (garter) belt. The sock had naturally developed some mould being stashed away for as long as he was, and he seems to be working to get his game back.
That a puppet show managed to draw a decent crowd without needing share a bill with Spinal Tap was reasonably impressive given Ed’s been off the air – can you say that in 2018? – for so long. Ed has returned, or will be returning, more accurately, as part of his new YouTube channel the F.U. Network, or FUN for short, in the spring.
Wednesday’s slapdash show was reasonably comparable to the shoddy production quality that was Canadian TV before 1980. For those of a younger generation, type “SCTV Monday Night Curling” into YouTube to see exactly what I’m talking about.
The giant upside is that in his commentary, Ed has shown he is perhaps even more relevant now in our thousand-shades-of BS-with-no-one-calling-it world. If no one in our society, let alone the media, has the guts to stand up and hold nonsense to account, why can’t a smartass sock puppet do it, and make us laugh at the same time? Ed the Sock is just as genius now as it was when he was invented. Can anyone think of a controversial Canadian? Of course not, that’s why it’s a green-haired cigar-chomping sock puppet saying all the impolite things Canadians would like to say.
Everyone knows pithy sarcastic humour makes the social media world go round, and not only is Ed’s bitchy snark still hilarious, he’s an intelligent Canadian cultural critic – which in our age of ever-increasing American cultural narcissism in popular media, is something this country desperately needs to ensure our voice is not drowned out by the self-obsessed attention whores living across the street. In short, Ed the Sock is Canada’s version of Bill Maher.
The moment opener Sterling Scott (right) started in with tales of growing up in Toronto, the now-Edmonton-based comic casually and confidently dominated the stage. He’s instantly likeable, in your face and funny as hell. He didn’t have a bad bit. He’s better than some of the schlock US performers getting their own one hour specials on Netflix. Someone give this guy his own show, please.
The first warm-up comic Malik Elassal isn’t quite ready for that yet. Too much on the meek side, his delivery of edgier material was not as effective as it should have been. While he has talent and some really good bits – including an absolutely hilarious one liner involving vaping and Ed Hardy shirts – he needs to work on a more forceful presentation, and fine tune his material. The comedy world really needs – culturally, as Elassal admits in his set – a Muslim funny man, and much of his better material addresses the conceptions and misconceptions of being Muslim in a predominantly Christian society.
READ OTHER COMEDY REVIEWS:
Jim Jefferies, July 2018
Craig Ferguson, October 2018
Interview with Sterling Scott, June 2012
