Yeseterday’s post – Stand Up, Canada, Atticus Finch Is Passing By – was about a Sketch-22 sketch that opened the 2nd act of our Season 7 production.
Today’s sketch topic – Smelt Shack – closed the first act of that same production, and features characters who are perhaps on the opposite end of the Canadian cultural spectrum to the Atticus Finch panelists. And features a video that I am still amazed ever happened.
I’m a bit fuzzy as to the timeline of events that caused this sketch and video to come into being. I do know that I had a few character nicknames floating around in my brain for quite some time – Upchucky, Stalag the German, a couple more – but had never really found the right vehicle to use them. I had decided, I think, that for this summer’s show, come hell or high water I’d write a sketch around these characters – mostly so that we all could have fun playing cliche “good ole Island boys” types. I placed them in a smelt shack setting, and got to writing
Somewhere along the way, during one of our writing-rehearsal / brainstorming sessions / gigglefests, we came upon the idea of melding the smelt shack script with a bit about the seal hunt industry. I don’t know who came up with the idea to have a penis represent the evil seals, but I do know who was totally on-board with being cast in that role.
So, yeah. we thought that a great way – an outlandish way – an “oh my god did I just see what I think I just saw, did they just do that” way to end the smelt shack sketch was to have these characters get excited about making a viral video that would show how (to these guys) the seal hunt is necessary because seals are killers of fish stock.
We’d do up an ultra cheap, poorly filmed video (as if these untalented guys were making it) using little figurines on a white bristol board or something that represented snow. There’d be a hole in the board,and a seal would pop up and attack the figurine people.
AND the huge, surprise reveal was that the seal would actually be an actual dick, dressed up to look like a seal.
Oh my god. We all laughed so hard until we cried the first time that concept was imagined. It would be SO funny, SO shocking… I LOVE that first of all, one of us came up with the idea… I LOVE that we felt like we HAD to follow through on that crazy idea. And I LOVE that we actually did follow through. And I absolutely LOVED watching the audience react to that reveal every night of the run.
(the way the stage sketch ended, the lights went down on us and the video immediately started. Because it was the last sketch of the act, we didn’t need to rush off stage to change, so we’d almost always just stay sitting in the smelt shack set, watching the audience watching the video, and wait until the seal-dick reveal. So rewarding to watch the faces of audience members as the moment registered in their brains.)
I don’t do it very often, but sometimes it really helps to write character dialogue out phonetically, and with purposefully misspelled (mispronounced) words and phrases. I wanted these characters to be very low status in terms of grammar and education, and getting into their specific individual patterns of speech really opened it up to come up with some really fun lines – lines that would never have come into being if I had just written it in a more neutral way and asked the actors to “Island it up” during rehearsals.
One of my favourite lines of all time is “Watch of how scared she looks!”
I always had so much fun playing in this sketch. Such great energy It always seemed to be on the verge of chaos, always daring to spin out of control. But surprisingly, we kept really close to the script the whole summer.
Here’s a censored promotional video that shows a segment of the sketch – Smelt Shack Excerpt
Smelt Shack
Upchucky: Fuck’s sake, boys. The smelt’s ain’t bitin’! What the fuck are we doin’ stuck in this shack for on a Sayerdee noight? Taint, we should be out talin’!!
Taint: Any pardees goin’ on, er wha? Stalag, you know of any pardees?
Stalag: Nuh uh. Court order don’t let me go to pardees ’til September.
Eggroll: Me too! Asshole Judge Lantz!!
Boner: I heard sumfin about Donna Laybolt puttin’ sumfin on.
Upchucky: Fuckin’ Donna Laybolt!! Fuck her and the stuck-up miniature horse she rode in on!
Stalag: Are you still squealin’ ’bout Donna Laybolt owin’ you a blowjob? I told ya. For the a-millionth time… Upchucky, she’s not gonna blow ya!
Upchucky: Shut up Stalag, ya fuckin’ German! She said she’d blow me if I mowed the lawn at her parents motel and I fuck
in’ mowed the lawn!
Eggroll: She wuz jokin’.
Upchucky: Yer a joke, Eggroll!
Taint: And that wuz loik two summer ago.
Upchucky: So? She said it, so she’ll blow me. If she knows what’s good for her.
Boner: Upchucky, Donna Laybolt, she not blowed anyone.
Upchucky: Shit sakes, Boner, wouldja quit rainin’ on my parade!
Taint: Donna Laybolt’s lips’r hunnert percent virgin lips. Tracy Goat tole me.
Stalag: Both sets a her lips are virgin lips!!
Boner: Birgin lips all ober her body!
Everyone but Eggroll laughs. He pulls out a couple of small action-figures and absently plays with them.
Eggroll: I don’t get it? What’s the joke? What’d I miss?
Taint: Half your grade nine year, Eggroll. That’s what ya missed ya stunned prick!
Eggroll: Fuck you Taint! You got held back a coupla grades too, ya know!
Upchucky: Eggroll, what the fuck you doin’ with them fingerines, anyways? What are ya, 12?
Eggroll: They’re awesome! Lookit them, they’re all scared and shit!
Eggroll passes them around.
Stalag: What the hell are they scared of? Fuckin’ pussies!
Eggroll: Stoled them off my little brother. Figured we could melt them later. Give ’em something to be scared of.
Taint: Holy shit, lookit this one! Who’s it look like?
Boner: Donna Laybolt!
Upchucky: What? Lemme see! (takes it from Taint) Holy shit, it does look like Donna.
Taint: Donna’s tits’re bigger.
Boner: Watch of how scared she looks!
Upchucky: She’s scared of how fuckin’ big my cock is, when she blows me!
Stalag: She’s not blowin’ ya. You’d have a better chance of gettin’ a blowjob from one of these smelts we ain’t catchin’.
Boner: Hey, Taint. Am it true dat your pop ain’t goin’ sealin’ dis wintner?
Taint: Hard truth, Boner. Hard truth. Gonna be a poor winter for sure. Dad’ll have ta sell the big screen prolly!! I don’t wanna go back ta regular def. I’ll tell yas boys, all the popperozzies and Hot Lip Hoolihans have totally fuckin’ roont the hunt!
Upchucky: They’re gettin’ exactly what they want! Fuckin’ popperozzies and skankin’ celebrities!! (mimicking) Oh baby seals are so cute! It’s a sin to kill such a cute fuckin’ baby fuckin’ seal! Gimme a fuckin’ break!!
Eggroll: All’s they do is they keep showin’ how cute the seals are on all the commercials and whatnot that they do. On the internet and everywhere.
Boner: It’s brame-warshin’ am what it is!
Taint: Baby seals ain’t cute. They’re fuckin’ monsters, rip the finger right off ya if they could.
Stalag: I know a guy who got three friggin’ fingers bit off. By a horse.
Upchucky: Horses are scary fucking man-eatin’ sons a bitches!!
Eggroll: It’s all propergander! They cornered the market on makin’ people think seals are cute’n’cuddly.
Upchucky: Someone should corner the market on propergandering that seals are little fuckin’ fish-eatin’ cocksuckers!
Boner: We should made are own bideo showin’ how ebil baby seals are. Pud id on youtube. Dat’d show’m.
Taint: We should! My cousint got a video camera I can borrow.
Upchucky: We can use Eggroll’s fingerines. Do it up so that it shows seals attackin’ people on fuckin’ ice flows an’ shit!
Stalag: Fuckin’ awesome!
Taint: What do we use for seals?
Eggroll: Silly putty. I’ll make ’em outta silly putty.
Boner: Dey need to be lookin’ scary but.
Taint: Should be at least one mother-fucking scary as shit huge monster seal!
Upchucky: Leave that one to me. I’ll take care of the huge monster seal.
Boner: Holy fuck, boy. We’ll gonna make a moobie.
Taint: We’re gonna turn the seal hunt on its ass!!
Boner: Let made dat bideo!!!
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