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By Tiffany Razzano
The Competition was hosted by Bob Nelson, whose television and film credits include The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and Kindergarten Cop. He performed in between each competing comic, sometimes taking up so much time for his gags that by the second set of the night, the Arts Council had to ask him to cut down his act to merely introducing the next comedian. "I love to see new talent as well as old talent," he said. "It's exciting to be here. There are a lot of comics from Long Island and there are a lot of stars from Long Island." He promptly launched into a hapless gag using a plunger as a test for baldness, which somehow garnered many laughs from the audience. As for the 16 comedians for the night, who were culled from an applicant pool of approximately 40 local comics, as the night wore on, it soon became apparent that the old adage there are no truly original ideas was most likely correct. Most of the comedians touched upon many of the same topics, the biggest being internet dating and their childhood with their dysfunctional families. Most of the comics had at least one good moment, some had several, but for the most part their performances were spotty, often inducing more groans than laughter from the intelligence audience member. The competition kicked off with Seaford's John Shea, who on complete opposite ends of the entertainment spectrum spent 12 years as a professional wrestler and had numerous guest appearances on Law & Order. During his ho-hum performance, mainly drew his material from his Irish-Catholic family. Simi Cohen, a former public school teacher in New York City, took the stage next with her raw humor and New York attitude. She was the first to find humor in the world of online dating. She was followed by the world's funniest accountant, Stevie GB, who eventually won the Audience's Choice award. Stevie's humor and enthusiasm was refreshing and original when compared to the rest of the comics. His act mainly consisted of his providing dry, observational humor about the commercials on News 12 Long Island. He also commented, at one point, that when he found out the dad from the Brady Bunch was a gay man, "it brought a whole new meaning to him having three boys of his own." Alex Anthony and Robert Altman a.k.a. Double A and Robo mixed some physical comedy and imitations into their acts, as they provided their version of different dating sites, including a soprano dating site, midgetdating.com, complainers.com and swinger.com. Their act was mostly silly, but they did spot on imitations of a pre-rock star Eddie Vedder, James Taylor and Metallica. Rich Walker, who has been in several television commercials, mostly whined about married life on stage, making fun of his wife and making the age-old, hackneyed observation that music that mixes country and rap is "crap." Dan Camarda, from Nesconset, provided similar insights about marriage, saying that he's really been married 114 years in dog years and referred to his children as Lucifer and Satan. There were also those comics that were just plain dirty, such as George Rini, known as the angry contractor because of his day job. One of his overly sexual jokes was that his client's "wife had an orgasm when she saw the crowning in their living room. You should've seen what happened when I laid the pipes." The eventual winner of the night, Joe DeVito, who has written for the documentary "Super Size Me," MTV and Maxim, showed a bit, though much, more intelligence than the other contestants with his geeky, self-deprecating humor.
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ho knew that Long Islanders had a sense of humor? Most likely not most residents of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. And after the Third Annual Laff-Off Competition sponsored by the Huntington Arts Council, it's likely that they're still not entirely convinced.
