The Asian Heritage of Being Hilarious

Asian Comedy All-Stars returned to the iconic Rivoli (with their newly minted Kids In The Hall plaque) to celebrate Asian Heritage Month with a packed house, and sore abs. The long-running show was kicked off by the show’s producer, Rush Kazi. They wrangled the raucous crowd with ease, and warmed up the audience with observations on pandemic couplings, breakups, and how to out-crazy the conspiracy theorists with even crazier conspiracy theories.

Amar Singh opened up the show with a bit about how people say he looks like a Disney prince, a VERY specific Disney prince: It’s Aladdin. He doesn’t just look like a prince, but he lives like one too, closing out his set by letting everyone know he likes to tip bank tellers.

Amy Yu followed, opening up about her ADHD, and lying to her mom that it’s a better PhD, because it starts with an A. Amy also found out that people with ADHD are creative, but she’s an accountant, and when accountants get creative, they go to jail.

DK Phan kept the laughs coming by learning to cook spring rolls, after having to read a White woman’s life story in the recipe. He closed out his set with an expanded set of rules for Monopoly, including playing in teams since rent is too expensive.

Edworld Kim was up next, and he wasted no time comparing solo mask wearing in cars, to hanging out in bed, solo, with a condom on. The highlight of his set were the less than PC titles of Disney movies in South Korea.

Veteran comic and actor, Ali Badshah closed out the first half of the show by detailing how Sally Field ruined his dating life with her film Not Without My Daughter. After tackling racism, Ali moved on to another marginalized group, dogs forced to wear costumes, including one dog that he saw dressed as a cat. Ali just wrapped filming a project with Whitney Cummings, and will be opening for Whitney at the Danforth Music Hall on June 26.

After a quick intermission, Rush got everyone back in the mood for comedy with a quick anti-turtle, anti-ocean chant. Bobbi Summers started off the second half of the show by letting us know he recently performed at a Burger King, but it was on one person, and in the bathroom. Just in case anyone felt like pulling a Will Smith, Bobbi warned that they’d also have to spit in his mouth and degrade him, so they better be ready to finish the job.

Erika Ehler dropped in as a surprise guest, fresh off of their multitude of Netflix writing gigs. Erika lamented being one septum piercing away from everyone knowing all of her opinions, but celebrated her weight loss goal by having sex with the lights on. 

Syed Raza kept the show rolling by explaining why Texans are so racist, it’s the heat. When he’s not breaking down racism, Syed is setting up his dad’s Pelaton to ride through Karachi, and the experience was so authentic, the ride ended with the bike being stolen.

Angela Kimmel joined us all the way from Georgia, USA, to finish up the featured comics. She described her tiny Asian mom, and her tall White dad, who is a towering 5’5”. 

Headliner Franco Nguyen (of CBC’s TallBoyz fame) took the stage, instantly going in on racists calling him “attractive for an Asian,” and how he fights that racism, one deep stroke at a time. Franco was also not afraid to detail how sexy Bruce Lee was, and how Bruce saying “be like water” made Franco wet. No topic was taboo, as Franco tackled Asian eyes, saying “they’re not slanted, they’re in Italics. They’re wedding invitation eyes.” He closed out his set by extolling the virtues of eating placenta, and deriving his personality from social media algorithms. 

And just like that, another successful Asian Comedy All-Stars was in the books. The next Asian Comedy All-Stars will happen in August 2022, at the iconic Rivoli in Toronto. Find out more at here.