The Hot Karl: This is not your parents’ improv

Got a call the other day that made me chuckle. “Hey Trent, this is Tim. David told me you wanted to talk to me about The Hot Karl. I’ll be around today and the rest of the week, so give me a ring at ... .”

Chalk that up as a voice mail message I’ve never received before, not to mention one I hope to never receive again. If you’ve got a puzzled look on your face, unsure of exactly what a “hot carl” is, well, it’s something I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable talking to my parents about if that helps you out. A raunchy, uh, sexual act — if you can even call it such — that is more than disturbing and difficult even to comprehend.

Head to the internet if you don’t have a dirty-minded friend you can ask, because you won’t get any further explanation here.

But before you go cringing and putting down this magazine, you should know that The Hot Karl is also an improv show sponsored by the good folks at ComedySportz, whose original humor typically is quick-hitting and remarkably clean. The Hot Karl is their way of letting loose a bit, so to speak (you’ll get that joke if you went to the internet). It’s filthy, it’s crass, it’s totally unrehearsed, free-flowing improv by six people drinking beer on a small stage. It starts at midnight every Saturday if that’s any indication of what to expect.

“We’re dirty improv, but with intelligence,” says Tim Chidester, a founding member of the Hot Karl who earned his stripes on the local comedy scene with Improv Olympic, Second City, ComedySportz, the Annoyance Theatre and others. “We get ’em in the door, and then if we scare ’em, we scare ’em. ... But it’s not swearing just for swearing sake. That’s boring. We consider it dirty, nasty fun for the whole family. Things you say behind closed doors that you’re not supposed to laugh at but do anyway. Where you’re like, ‘Ahhh, that’s horrible. But it’s funny.’ ”

Chidester has participated in all branches of comedy in his 20 years on the stage, but something always bothered him. He felt like he could only go so far with what he was doing to get people to laugh. He wondered to himself, what if we pushed a little further? What if there were no rules? If we went to this place, to this other level that may offend, is it necessarily wrong? What if we could do something dirty, but still be smart about it?

Enter the Hot Karl in 1999, which Chidester describes as a cross between “Monty Python” and “South Park” — only with no semblance of a script of any kind. Chidester has a steady cast of fellow improvisers with whom he performs (currently a combination of Ross Bryant, Eric Lindberg, Rachael Mason, Randy Smock, Sam Super, Zach Thompson and Sara Wolfson) and often welcomes random guests from the improv community on occasion as well. After all, every comedian feels like really letting go of his or her inhibitions once in a while. It comes with the territory.

“It’s very freeing, actually, to stop worrying about restrictions,” Chidester says. “It’s no-limit comedy. ... But we don’t swear or do crude things just for shock value. We try to make it fit with the characters we come up with and their world — like they did with Archie Bunker in ‘All in the Family.’ ”

Those characters, as warped and weird as they are at times, come from the mind, usually on the spot. And as strange as it sounds, you find yourself relating to them, comparing them to people you know.

There is no pre-determined set list here. No plan of any kind. The six comedians take some suggestions at the outset of the show and play off of the ones they like, and from then on, it’s no holds barred. They’re allowed, encouraged even, to go in any direction they like, and to get as graphic as they want. Some may only toe the line. Others, though, have no problem getting a running start and jumping right over it.

One or two comedians starts in with a scene, and others will follow along when and where they see fit, like those choose-your-own adventure books as a kid. Only the disturbing, adult kind.

The product is not always smooth, not always polished, but that’s part of the fun, part of the allure. There’s something to be said about people who can think that quickly on the fly, and out of their imagination, create a character or a situation that generates laughter.

In this day and age of hectic schedules and regulating everything to death, people tend to need a release, and they don’t necessarily want to have to think too much. To just loosen the tie, sit back and watch something that makes them laugh. An escape, as occasionally vulgar as it may be. Realizing this, it’s no mistake the Hot Karl has been around for eight years and counting.

“We’re pretty lucky to have this job,” Chidester says. “We have beers on stage, and we like to think of it like all of a sudden we have 40 friends in our living room. It’s a great gig when people pay to come watch me pretend and act like a fool.”

The Hot Karl plays every Saturday night at midnight at Donny’s Skybox in Piper’s Alley on North Avenue and Wells. Log on to www.TheHotKarl.com or check out http://www.myspace.com/thehotkarl for more information. For tickets, call ComedySportz at 312-733-6000.

Trent Modglin
Publisher
The Real Chicago
Trent@TheRealChicago.org

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