Thirty years ago, it was much easier to undermine the decency of the masses. In the late 1970s for example, an act appearing on the popular television program The Gong Show entitled, "Have You Got a Nickel," featured two seventeen-year-old girls provocatively sucking frozen-flavored treats, subsequently causing hullabaloo that pales in comparison to today's controversy - especially when measured against the shockingly offensive works of the comedic cadre, Wrist Deep Productions, which features Denver comics Greg Baumhauer, Ben Kronberg, and Adam Cayton-Holland. In the past, the trio's adaptation of The Gong Show, aptly titled You Suck Get Off the Stage has taunted its audiences with acts portraying Osama Bin Laden licking peanut butter off of a silicon phallus, and videos hinting Jesus' love interest was a foul-mouthed, bong-smoking teenage male. And that's just the tip of the popsicle. In fact, there's no subject - no matter how distasteful - the Wrist Deep Crew won't employ to shock the collective sensibility of society at large.
While these close-knit comics spent the latter half of the decade constructing an alt-comedy scene in the Mile High City, they found their most potent voice in their variety show, which gives them complete creative freedom to assemble a combination of short films and stand-up comedy alongside the normal presentation of amateur performers that the audience is free to boo off the stage. And what adaptation of the popular 70s game show would be complete without the actual gong used in the original broadcast? The latest installment of You Suck Get Off the Stage features not only the authentic gong, but also some of Denver's brightest comedians: Chuck Roy from Last Comic Standing, Ben Kronberg who recently appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and local writer Adam Cayton-Holland. And of course the host, Greg Baumhauer, who alternates between appearing in nearly every comedy show across the Front Range, and of course, writing, performing and preparing his gong-themed presentations.
The Advocate: Do you make a concerted effort to take You Suck Get Off the Stage to progressively higher levels of offensiveness?
Greg Baumhauer: Yeah, we really try to go there. I mean, why not? What are we doing? What makes us different from any other lame variety show? It's that. We like to make people cringe a little bit. We're pretty fucking good at it.
What keeps bringing you back to this variety format?
To be honest with you, the show is a pain in the ass: A lot of people and a lot of whining. The performers, some of them are great, but there's always a couple that are such a pain in the ass. Every time we do the show, I say to myself after we're done, 'We're not doing another one.' But what happens is I go out and run into people that have been to the show. When they talk about the show, their eyes light up. And everyone's always asking, 'When are you doing the next show?' So that's really what keeps me going. People really love it. They have a really good time. And that's cool. You can do something like that for at least a couple of hours.
It's the only show in Denver where the crowd plays such an integral part of it.
And that's what makes it fun for the crowd. If you heckle someone at the comedy club, you're going to get thrown out. If you yell at a band at a show, you're that asshole. Here they get to really just let loose.
It feels like a community.
And that's what we're all about at Wrist Deep Productions, the community. [Laughs for a good 15 seconds] That's good.
Do you ever get mad at the crowd?
Sometimes when they boo when I'm talking, because I'm not a fucking act. I'm a host. Sometimes I wish the crowd would give some of the performers a little longer before they start booing. What happens is they don't give these guys a chance. And they're paying for a show but we only have a set number of acts. The faster they boo, the faster the show's going to be over. The acts I pick are usually pretty interesting. One time a guy was throwing beer cans on stage and that wasn't cool. But of course he's a friend of mine, so…
It's probably pretty easy for the drunks to get carried away. Do you have a hard time getting people face the hostility?
We got the original gong from a guy that used to work on the set of the Gong Show. He was telling me that he would have all these acts booked and they would get booed so fast that they ran out of time. They didn't have enough time to fill up their show. So they'd have the crew go out there. Like, "Hey go out and sing a song." Believe it or not, it's a hard to find people to go out there. It's a show called, You Suck - meaning you the performer - Get Off the Stage.
Do you have open auditions?
Yes.
Do you take everyone you get?
No, we don't. For this show, I got contacted by a whole lot of rappers, and you can easily have too many.
It seems like rappers might take themselves more seriously than your other acts. Do they get any more upset about being booed?
They do. I tell everybody, "There's a good change you're going to get gonged." And everyone thinks to themselves, "I'm not going to get gonged." And then of course they get gonged and then they're mad at me for putting on the show.
So there are a lot of delusions and egos that get shattered?
Oh yeah. Just shattered. But you know what? It's show business. This is what's going to happen. You're going to get booed sometimes.
Is this a lot of people's first exposure to show business?
Some. It's mixed. We get some people that haven't done it before, and then we get the veterans. Those are the people that get mad the most-the I-do-this-for-a-living people. They're serious artists. "You don't boo me! I've been playing the accordion for 10 years. I played Caesars!"
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