The Board of Directors of an international dog-food company once held a meeting, with legendary results. They had just released a new product which represented the cutting edge in canine nutrition. It came, moreover, with the endorsement of leading celebrities, and it was the beneficiary of a smart, well-financed advertising campaign. 
Even the design of the can label had been tested in front of focus groups. And yet the product was selling miserably. After calling in consultants and spending millions more on research, they came up with an answer:
Dogs didn’t like it.
So it is with The MacCloskey and Myers Complete Do-It-Yourself Comedy Hour (henceforth “M&M”), a series of attempted comedy sketches now playing at the Goethe Institute. It is directed by the great Gary Austin, the improv genius who founded The Groundlings. It features digital shorts by Emmy-winning Tyler Brunch; voice-overs by Emmy-winner Melissa Leebaert, a nicely composed set, attractive performers in Luke MacCloskey (who, notwithstanding, is a bit of a fumblemouth) and Christina Myers. Even the program is nice, with a color picture of the performers, posed adorably. There’s just one problem.
‘Taint funny.
No, this understates it. It is to funny as the Sahara Desert is to shrubbery. Of the nineteen sketches in this one-hour show, only one – about a man trying to call a suicide hot-line and getting voice-mail hell – is actually amusing. Another sketch, about an insomnia tape, has some laughs. The rest – well, half of them have no punch line. In the other half, you will guess the punch line thirty seconds into the setup. At least one – involving a man who gives a woman a forcible foot massage – is seriously creepy.
On and on we go, with the familiar sketch of the married couple who sits silently at the breakfast table as their thoughts are voiced through a loudspeaker, followed by the familiar sketch of the couple meeting at the dentist’s, followed by the familiar sketch of the Jewish mother complaining because her son doesn’t visit her enough. I write these sketches down, but even as I describe them they begin to disappear from my memory, like an unpleasant dream after the buzz of my alarm clock awakes me from slumber.
Toward the end, the performers call two audience volunteers down to go through some pointless exercise with a film being projected on the Goethe screen; they are funny. The show concludes with an improv exercise which will be familiar to any fan of the brilliant improv show, Who’s Line Is It Anyway? That was funny. M&M, regrettably, is not.
The MacCloskey and Myers Complete Do-It-Yourself Comedy Hour
By Luke MacCloskey and Christina Myers
Directed by Gary Austin
Produced by Artistic New Directions
Reviewed by Tim Treanor
Running time: one hour
This marks the 132nd, and final, review of the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival.
Read all the reviews and check out the full Capital Fringe schedule here.
Did you see the show? What did you think?
I feel this reviewer must have been having a very very bad day indeed. I’ve seen this show a number of times including during the Fringe Festival and always observe a wonderful response from the audience both during and immediately after the show. I spoke with several people who were there because others had told them not to miss it. Nichols and May style is a common comparison. Mr Treanor might want to do his homework before he gives his next mean spirited and un-researched review. Tyler Bunch (not Brunch as written) and Melissa Leebaert were collaborators; all creative work was done by McClosky and Myers. We were part of the Production team, Tyler helped with production on digital shorts and I did production on VO. Perhaps Mr. Treanor is intimidated by the names he feels it so important to mention such as Gary Austin’s. I found this review to be almost gleefully unkind and hurtful, it leads me to question what’s going on Tim? Christina and Luke have a wonderful reputation and a strong following, including Michael Gelman – director of Second City Chicago, Jeffrey Sweet an award winning playwright and author of the iconic Improv book ‘Something Wonderful Right Away’ and yes, Gary Austin. Personally I look forward to following the careers of McClosky and Myers for Many years to come.