Thursday, June 20, 2013
By John Benson
Comedian-actor Gerry Bednob has no problem admitting he’s stupid. Stupidly funny, that is.
This is exactly what Bednob promises audiences will experience at his Saturday show, along with his friend and Sharon, Pa., native Bob Golub, who is also a comedian-actor, at Quaker Steak & Lube in Sharon.
“We need more Indian comics in Sharon,” said Golub, laughing. “I’ve known Gerry 30 years. We started out doing stand-up together.”
“Bob asked me several times to come to [the Youngstown area], but I don’t travel much anymore,” said Bednob, calling from Las Vegas. “But because he’s my friend, I decided to visit his hometown. He said there are people who would like to meet me, and some didn’t even know I did stand-up comedy. They’ve only seen me in TV shows and movies.”
Actually, Bednob, who was born in Trinidad and graduated from the University of Toronto, started performing decades ago, before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue his dream. In fact, this was so long ago that he appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show.”
From that point, he became a regular touring comedian before finally garnering Hollywood’s attention with appearances on “The Wonder Years” and in feature film “Encino Man.” Then in the early 2000s, he was cast in Judd Apatow’s short-lived series “Undeclared.”
This struck up a friendship that led to his appearance in 2005 feature film “The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” where Bednob had memorable scenes berating Steve Carell’s character for his lack of sexual prowess.
Defying expectations is something Bednob has been doing for decades with his Indian accent that spews dark, twisted and race-baiting material.
As far as his upcoming set, Bednob said his topics span the gamut.
“I talk about everything, including politics, sports and driving,” Bednob said. “My whole thing is like I’m a character from Bangladesh. That’s the hook. I’m making fun of the country where I’m from and coming to America. So in a sense, I talk about coming from a poor country. Like my opening line would be, ‘I know what you’re thinking, another comedian from Bangladesh. They just keep coming.’
“I also talk about what we do to reduce the population, like raise the speed limits, adjust traffic lights for green on all sides and have signs saying, ‘Speed up, school ahead.’ That’s consistently been getting laughs over the years.”
Bednob acknowledges his greatest asset on stage is keeping the audience on its toes.
“I do a thing where I talk about getting chest pains,” Bednob said. “I’ll say, ‘What comes to mind when you get chest pains?’ The audience is always thinking heart attack. So no, I say, the first thing that comes to mind is leprosy. It’s stupid.”