Q & A with L.A. comedy duo Cheap Smokes

Tomorrow night at The Company House, Toronto/L.A. comedy duo Cheap Smokes (Kaitlin Mamie and Laura Danowski) are presenting a variety show that'll satisfy all of your comedy cravings (8pm, $7). The show will feature special guests Adam Christie (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), Heidi Brander (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), local comic Dan Hendricken and appearances by cast members from The Trailer Park Boys. Smokes, let's fuckin go. 

Now based in L.A., the comedy duo has appeared on Just for Laughs, MTV Canada, Sirius XM Radio and their own comedy miniseries about their move to L.A. They're in town filming sketches for TPB's SwearNet. Mamie says, "We've been shooting a ton of ridiculous sketch comedy over the past few weeks, we're really excited for people to see what we've been doing. It's going to be super funny." Gotta subscribe to that SwearNet. Danowksi says it's time to get greasy. 

Tell me about your backgrounds. You're both from Ontario?

Kaitlin: I grew up in a small town called "Pembroke, Ontario" that's been known to be pretty wild. The highlights are murals, retirement homes, and East Side Mario's on a Friday night. I met Laura in the comedy program at Humber college in Toronto. The story goes, I went over to her house, she microwaved me some tea, and we've been best friends ever since. We became instant friends and soon realized we had the same sense of humor and started a sketch troupe.

Laura: I'm from a small town with one stop light called Thamesford. It has a festival called Calithumpian and the town crowds around a giant field with cows. The field is set up like a bingo grid and wherever the cow poops, you can cross off your bingo sheet. When you get a line or 4 corners you have "Bingo" and you win a tractor. Pretty cool if you ask me. I am very glad I moved to Toronto. Kait and I have been performing together for eight years and still going. 

How did you get wrangled up with the Trailer Park Boys? 

Kaitlin: They basically found our Youtube channel, watched some of our videos and realized we were insane and completely unafraid to do almost anything. We met the boys in Los Angeles, drank a giant bottle of tequila out of red plastic beer cups and immediately hit it off. 

Who is your favourite character on the Trailer Park Boys? 

Kaitlin: I really love them all. It's a very safe answer I know, but after meeting them all in person I really can't say I have a favorite. Dancing: Ricky. Drinking: Bubbles. Cutie Pie: Julian.

Laura: I love them ALL although I do feel like Bubbles and I were separated at birth. We both love to say "yes" to anything and we hate when the party's over. They are all the best and made us feel like we've known them for years. We all got along handsomely. 

Do you perform stand-up as well as sketch? Or sketch and some stand-up?

Kaitlin: Our performing style is a bit of a mixture of sketch and improv with a little bit of stand-up. We really like to involve the audience. We tend to be really interactive and extremely physical. I'd say we burn about 500 calories a show, easily. Can't stop, won't stop! We're very silly and fun. We've been described as being "a party onstage," which pretty much sums us up.

Laura: It's hard to describe us onstage, you kind of just have to come and watch. I'm not going to say that we don't do fart and poop jokes but I am going to say that we love fart and poop jokes and do them often. We each do character stand-up if one of us can't do a show.

What's next for Cheap Smokes after Swearnet wraps? 

Kaitlin: We're hoping to get a sketch comedy show on television. This really is an incredible time to be a female in comedy and we are so happy to be part of it. We'll be going back to L.A. We'll continue to do live comedy and film videos for SwearNet and our Youtube channel. And continue to share a luxurious one bedroom apartment in Little Armenia. Hollywood, here we come!

Laura: Someday I won't live in the living room of our one bedroom apartment but I hope we will work together forever. We say that when we (if ever) get husbands and a family that we will live right beside each other. Hopefully you'll see us next with our own show.

Check out their comedy videos now; get your chicken fingers ready for tomorrow.