Imagine going into a Big Brother-like room with ten top comedians. Let’s say they’re all Canadians. Why not name them: Colin Mochrie (Whose Line is it Anyway?), Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall), Andrew Phung (Run the Burbs), K Trevor Wilson (Letterkenny), Tom Green, Caroline Rhea, Deb DiGionanni, Jonathan Lajolie, Brandon Ash Mohammad and Mae Martin.
Your mission is to not laugh at anything they say or do and to make one or several of them crack at least a smile. That’s the premise behind LOL: Last One Laughing Canada, which premieres Friday on Amazon Prime Video. Whoever lasts the longest without laughing wins $100,000 towards their favourite charity.
Prime Video is where you’ll find the Australian version of this format, which was hosted by Rebel Wilson. (Jay Baruchel hosts the one in Canada.) Other versions have been done in Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil and where it all began, Japan.
I spoke with Mochrie about it on the latest episode of brioux.tv the podcast. (Listen to it here or click the blue and white arrow above.) I told him I thought he had the edge after sitting on stools next to Brad Sherwood, Wayne Brady and Ryan Styles all those years on Whose Line and fighting to keep a straight face through all those improvisations. Mochrie also learned a valuable skill doing that show — where to find another comedians’ most vulnerable nerve.
Mochrie prepped for the series by watching every other international version. He can now not laugh in six languages.
He knows that comedians like to chuckle — especially at their own material. Plus try not laughing with Tom Green in your face doing whatever crazy messed up thing that wanders into his head. Not easy.
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Me and Mochrie get into much more, including his Scottish roots, his early years at Second City and all those lavish parties and trips Whose Line host Drew Carrey used to lavish on the cast and crew of that series. We also talk about his many credits on Canadian TV shows, everything from being a desker for a couple of years on This Hour Has 22 Minutes to playing a recurring characters on Murdoch Mysteries and Private Eyes to the comedy Blackfly with Ron James to his own series with wife Debra McGrath, Getting Along Famously. Listen in on our conversation here.
