Darrenfrost.com | The Official Website of Darren Frost

Paul Alviz

The Cord Weekly

(Wilfrid Laurier

University)

WATERLOO (CUP)

Darren Frost wants to make you laugh. More importantly, he wants to make you think. His material is questionable, though, involving deceased infants, defecating on newsprint and referring

to the audience as “fucktards.”  One might ask exactly what it is he’d like you to

think about.  He gets regular hate mail — a point of pride for a comedian whose goal is to stretch limits and break new ground through shocking verbiage and only the most mature of subject

matters.

Vulgar would be a fairly modest term to describe his vocabulary. Once referred to as

“Ugly Toes” — a nickname he now promotes — in a letter from a disheartened elementary school teacher who happened to catch a show, Frost is confident in his ability to disarm aggressors

who decide they don’t like his style.  “Sometimes it becomes a verbal fight,” he says of rowdy audience

members, “which they will always lose. They’re never gonna win that one.  Anyone with limited [public]

verbal experience is not gonna win.”  He adds slyly, “I don’t go to someone else’s work and say, ‘hey, these fries aren’t cooked all the way.’”

Frost is a little less enthusiastic when it comes to physical fights, but their occurrence helps to reiterate

just what kind of reactions can be elicited from his material. He’s been physically assaulted on stage more than once, but one of his most frightening experiences was with a woman in Alberta who

threatened to cut him. Frost comments seriously, “I’m known for ‘this could be a riot’, not just a

funny-riot, but a riot.” When asked why he supposes he’s strayed from the traditional path of cutesy

observational comedians like Dane Cook, Frost explains that “the world isn’t the way I want it to be; my life didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, and I’m just a lot more angry and frank about things that upset me or piss me off.”

Citing George Carlin as the best comedian in the world, Frost is a fan of

comics who can constantly update their material to be current and discuss pertinent issues of the day. He’s a socio-political observationalist, and describes his goals by saying “I’m always rooting for the underdog, [and] I’m here to point out the hypocrisy in the things I see.”

But let’s not get all hung up on broken hearts and overtly cynical observations. He wants you to

laugh, remember? And his show is funny, once you let go of your boundaries and try to focus on the larger points he’s making. A clip available of him on his MySpace account titled “Kraft” offers a notably

irreverent analysis of the noodle company’s hypocrisy in trying to avoid controversy, while its parent

company produces cigarettes and implicates cancer in its youth market. Another piece, “Horses”, is

a bit on sexually assaulting animals.

Things weren’t always this way, however. Frost has had a particularly successful career on television for a good portion of the 1990s and the new millennium.

Having appeared in over 50 commercials, once  you see his face there’s the odd nostalgic sensation

that you know this man, and you do. You know him as the quirky husband in a Leon’s commercial, the

out-of-work Hermes (messenger of the Gods) in an amusing Microsoft ad, and the obnoxious Listerine bottle “action-hero guy.”

He’s also been on some major Hollywood film sets, including Don’t

Say a Word, where he had a scene with Michael Douglas, and the more recent star-studded production

Hairspray, featuring a sexually metamorphosized John Travolta. However, the 18-hour days and pressures on the set don’t permit much camaraderie, especially among the bigger celebs.

“Everyone thinks you hang out and go to barbeques with them,” adds the realistic

Frost, explaining that most people just want to get in and get out. For now, Frost is focusing

on his stand-up material, with a new DVD to begin filming in January. He also has free video clips

and an audio CD for purchase on his website, comedywhore. com, and you can also check him out on

YouTube and MySpace. “There are things that are funny about 9/11 [and] there are things that are

funny about cancer,” says Frost in spite of people’s prudish attitudes. Watch  him for the laughs, stay for the scathing social commentary — you might even learn something.