Button-pushing stand-up comedian turns to video after local clubs turn him away.
It’s a good thing Rob Mailloux is making the move onto DVD, because he may be running out of places around town where he can perform. The local stand-up says he’s persona non grata at Absolute Comedy these days and that things have soured between him and Yuk Yuk’s.
The way Mailloux tells it, Absolute Comedy has a rule against rape or abortion jokes ever since one of his button-pushing bits drew some nasty comment cards (and actual hisses!) from the crowd. And Mailloux has a lot of material about abortion and/or adoption, having been passed to a family in Windsor after narrowly “dodging the vacuum” as a fetus. He assumes his bio-mom flipped a coin on whether to “sell” or abort him. (Someone should put him and Bobby Mair, another second-hand son on the local scene, on a bill for Planned Parenthood.)
“I think, obviously, being adopted shaped whatever I find funny,” says Mailloux, on the phone from somewhere on the road in Michigan. “It got me morbid and let me find humour in things I shouldn’t necessarily.”
Mailloux says his “morbid” tastes got him booted from Absolute, though owner Jason Laurans insists there’s no rule against any sort of gag at his clubs and that Mailloux is not among the very short list of people who have been banned.
As for Yuk Yuk’s? Mailloux is on the roster at the comedy super-club but has a habit of playing other rooms without the say-so of boss Mark Breslin. Mailloux also claims he lost points when, earlier this year, he worked with Maria Bamford following her outburst (“Dictatorship!”) on CBC Radio against the comedy chain.
“I haven’t worked a weekend [at Yuk's] since,” he says with a laugh, “but there’s no point in quitting because I can’t work Absolute. So I have to go my own way.”
Hence, he’s turning to self-distributed video. Mailloux will record his first DVD, aptly titled My Mother Would Be Proud, this Sunday (June 12), 7:30 p.m. at The Drake Hotel (1150 Queen St. W., #WQW). Admission is $10.
