ComedySportz Turns 40

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Photo Via ComedySportz Milwaukee - Facebook

ComedySportz Milwaukee

Milwaukee may be a comedy hot spot now. But 40 years ago, the city was a desert for laughter.

Then came ComedySportz. 

As Dick Chudnow, the improvisational comedy trade organization's founder, recounts, “Back in 1984 there was no comedy in Milwaukee. There was one night of stand-up at a club, Other than that there was nothing else, there were no comedy shows. There was also nothing for kids and families (comedy-wise).  

People would tell us in the very beginning when we were shopping around the idea that it doesn’t work here in Milwaukee! ‘You’re telling me, nobody likes to laugh here in Milwaukee?’ But, I guess it was a very strait-laced community, and no one knew what improv was. They thought improv had to do with jazz,” Chudnow recalls of the city before he introduced it to improv comedy. Oddly, the birth of an idea that has germinated into 24 branches in the United States and United Kingdom came from the commemoration of a death.  

Of the memorial service for a friend’s dad Chudnow reflects, “His father had passed, and he had a wake Kalt’s Restaurant on Oakland and Locust, in their Green Room. A number of us attended that wake, and I thought it would be perfect to do a show like we had been doing in LA.” 

Kentucky Fried Comedy 

It should be noted here that Chudnow had already accumulated an extensive comedy CV. While attending UW Madison, the Shorewood High graduate co-founded the Kentucky Fried theater improv troupe. Soon thereafter he and Milwaukeean friends Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker took their concept to Los Angles. Pre-Airplane! Chudnow’s chums created Kentucky Fried Movie; Chudnow later authored scripts for funny flicks including Leslie Nielsen's Spy Hard.                

But, back to Milwaukee... 

“I approached Henry Kalt and asked if we can do a show in his Green Room,” Chudnow continues. “And he agreed, as they used to use it for musical revues and revival- type shows.” The friend whose parent had passed, Chris Keene, was instrumental in the development of ComedySportz (CSZ) as well. “We had just been running workshops around town introducing people to improv. While Chris was in town, he did a workshop for us and taught us some of the short form games that we fell in love with. many we still play today, and everything just kind of fell into place. We had our first show at Kalts’ in September of 1984.” 

CSZ’s 40th anniversary will be celebrated soon in part with the ComedySportz 35th World Championship from Wednesday July 31 to Saturday August 3. What will transpire there should be as refection of the professionalism the organization has honed throughout the foregoing four decades. But Chudnow credits his improv brainchild’s flexibility for its longevity.    

“The great thing about a CSZ show is that we can and have done it everywhere!  It’s so portable and nimble because it is improv,” Chudnow observes. “Our match format works for any and all occasions. We have done shows for weddings and wakes. We’ve done a show for three people in their back yard to 3600 people at Summerfest.” Chudnow estimates that the total of CSZ performances throughout its history exceeds 30,000, with live attendance surpassing 1.000,000.  

Family Shows 

As he has noted, many of those coming for any CSZ show are parents and children. Though alcohol is available in the Milwaukee ComedySportz restaurant, the organization’s goal is family-friendly entertainment. That's achieved by improvisers minding their manners. “Our success is that we never make fun of everyone. Everyone is welcome and everyone gets to be part of the match,” he says. “The match can’t happen without the fans. The fans always come first.  

“If you aren’t for everybody, then there goes your audience,” Chudnow summarizes. “As simple as it sounds, we are nice. We honor our guests, their suggestions and their willingness to volunteer. We are just nice.” 

As for the World Championship, “There are six matches each day: 6 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. culminating in the Championship Match at 10 p.m. on Saturday, August 3.” All the games, involving 250 improvisers from across the U.S., will take place at the CSZ Arenas on S. First Street.   

Per the nature of CSZ competitive improv which Chudnow notes is a good fit for a city sports-oriented as Milwaukee is, he cites the motto, "We want to win, but we don’t care if we lose.” 

Chudnow does, however, care about ComedySportz’s place in the city where he founded it. “Improv is about connection and bringing people together to build a better community through authenticity and laughter. It has been our greatest honor to be part of the Milwaukee Community for 40 years.”   

From eight years into its history here’s a promotional short for a proposed 1992 ComedySportz television show, shot in Milwaukee:

In Memoriam 

Bob Newhart’s TV history extends to a couple of the most successful sitcoms of the 1970s and ‘80s. Stints taking over Johnny Carson's hosting duties on The Tonight Show and starring roles in shorter-lived sitcoms. Among his fewer movie roles, his most memorable is arguably in the Will Ferrell 2003 Christmas perennial, Elf. 

The former Chicago advertising worker, however, made his initial national splash as a stand-up comedian in ways that haven't been replicated since. His debut album., 1960’s The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart, not only topped Billboard's album sales chart for multiple weeks, it netted him Grammy trophies for both album and new artist of the year. Six more Warner Brothers albums of Newhart’s deadpan schtick would follow. After Mort Saul proved the aesthetic viability of the stand-up LP, Newhart opened the floodgates for the format's commercial fortune.  

He was professionally active late as his octogenarian years with a part on “The Big Bang Theory” spin-off “Young Sheldon” up to 2020. Newhart died earlier this month at 94, leaving a comedic legacy few can rival. Here he is performing one of the telephone-based bits that abetted his rise to notoriety...