I wish I knew about this when it was still active: Scott Thompson, the member of the Kids in the Hall sketch comedy troupe who broke ground as an out-of-the-closet gay performer at a time when homosexuals were still punching bags for some of the world’s most popular comedians, used to maintain a blog about fruits. Ha ha.
Thompson announced the fruit blog’s existence with the following, in February of 2011:
In the beginning there was the apple and everything was quiet. Then Eve took a bite and that’s when the fun started. The apple is the most popular fruit in the Western Hemisphere and grows pretty much everywhere. There are thousands of types of apples. My favourite is the Macintosh or Macs. Maybe that’s why I love my computer so much. I used to love Delicious apples when you only had them rarely. Then one day they were there every day, their bumps no longer exotic, their almost cloying sweetness no longer exciting. And then they weren’t even called Delicious any more and we were all suppposed to pretend that it had always been that way. No thank you Big Brother. I’m fine with my Mac and a hunk of cheddar. And no thank you, you can keep your fancy handkerchief to yourself. I’ll just polish it on my jeans.
New postings ended in September of 2012, roughly coincident with the announcement that Thompson would play crime scene investigator Jimmy Price on NBC TV’s Hannibal. But in that year and a half or so, Thompson (and friends) blogged a ridiculous series of video fruit reviews. He bravely took on the pomegranate, confronted guava with steely resolve, and went toe-to-toe with tiny bananas and lived to tell the tale. It’s pretty obvious these were all made in a single session. Since I’m laughing, I don’t care.
Pomegranates, part I
Pomegranates, part II
Guava
Tiny Bananas
Dragon Fruit
Mangos
Though Hannibal is a serious drama, Thompson continues to perform comedically. Last week he appeared on The Colbert Report, in the guise of his famous and flamboyant alter-ego Buddy Cole, interviewing openly gay U.S. Ambassador Dan Baer about homophobia in Russia. And he made this informative little gem about the Dumbbells, a WWI era Canadian vaudeville troupe, for the CBC TV program George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.