The Apple Tree
Saturday night I produced this show called The Apple Tree Comedy Competition. Three judges held apples in their mouths. Four comedians competed. The comedian that made the judges drop the most apples won.
I came up with this idea because I always eat an apple at the end of my workday before I drive home, and often I’ll have to use the rest room too. So this one day I go in and I’m like where am I going to put my apple? I’ll just hold it in my mouth. So I do that and I’m at the urinal, and there’s another urinal next to that one. If someone had come in to use it while I had that apple in my mouth, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to not drop it in the urinal from laughing. I thought, this would be an awesome idea for a comedy competition.
It took a while to get anyone on board with the concept so I could actually do it. Finally I was able to get it on the Test Kitchen show at The Sacramento Comedy Spot. This is a show where they test out new show ideas. I got some flyers made and set about promoting it sort of low key because it was a free show at 10:30 and only 30 minutes long. It seemed like a lot of people really liked the concept.
Then I posted on social media that I needed judges and contestants. The spots filled up quick. Like in 20 minutes or less. I was impressed. I ended up with judges Bryant Tarpley, Jamie Fernandez and Giuliana Gabrielli. For contestants we had Michael Cella, Edgar Granados, Ben Rice, and Robert Berry.
Showtime came. I got the judges up on the stage so we could watch them hold the apples. I gave them baskets to let them fall into. I should have also provided napkins since they started to drool profusely. This made me laugh, not so much at their plight, but just because of this whole situation that I had gotten them into.
The first comic up was Michael. He tried to roast the judges with personal anecdotes and a bunch of his jokes, but he only managed two apple drops, not counting the ones he physically yanked out of their mouths. What a bully. So I made that against the rules.
Then went Edgar. He just did his material for the most part with less roasting, but still only managed two drops. At this point I was wondering how well it was going to work. The judges were able to laugh at jokes without dropping apples, and plus they’d already heard a lot of the jokes before anyway since they are also comics and we all know each other’s jokes.
Then Ben Rice went up and again despite getting laughs, he didn’t get a single drop. I was like, this isn’t going to work. We need grapefruits, or maybe even watermelons.
But then, Robert Berry went on and it turned out he had written an entire set about apples. The apples just started flying out of the judges mouths. I couldn’t believe it. I’d watch and listen to Robert tell a joke, start laughing, then turn and watch the judges drop apples and then I couldn’t stop laughing! He hit me so hard with one joke about apple bottom jeans that I laughed solidly at just that joke for the rest of his set. He ended up with at least 10 drops, clearly demonstrating that the concept could work, and clearly winning the prize, the box with the rest of the apples in it.
Well, I couldn’t be happier with the result. Now I just have to see if we can get this turned into a bigger production with a few tweaks to make things easier on the judges and what not. Thanks to everyone involved! I hadn’t laughed that hard in a while.