Russell Peters' fans might disagree, but Dane Cook is arguably the biggest name in stand-up comedy. The 37-year-old Bostonian is a tireless workhorse whose skip-the-media approach to his fans has turned him into a megastar.
For years, Cook appealed to his fans directly via an impressive online presence on the social networking site MySpace (2,581,756 friends and counting!), allowing him to steer clear of the ink-stained wretches.
"I had this fan base that was so tenacious and so on the pulse of what I was doing that I didn't feel at that time that I really needed to do very much press," he said on the phone from his home in Los Angeles yesterday, one day ahead of his show at GM Place. "I could get on MySpace, I could put out one note and places would sell out."
Not that he needs help putting bums in seats these days. It's just that his plan backfired somewhat. While his legion of fans swear he's the best thing to ever happen to comedy, his success saw the inevitable backlash that comes with crazy fame.
"There was a lot of misunderstanding about me and who I was and my passion for stand-up comedy. The rumour mill and innuendo kind of became the truth on the bathroom wall," he says. "So I found it was a bit of a disservice to not get out there and talk to people like yourself and let them know what I'm really about."
He claims he expected the adverse reaction since it had been years since the likes of Steve Martin and Andrew "Dice" Clay were performing comedy on that kind of level.
"There's nowhere to go when you hit that upper echelon, especially when you're exposed to that many more people that truly just don't find you funny," he says. "The more people find you funny, the much more people that don't find you funny. So you just kind of roll with those punches."
Cook received an unexpected punch back in 2006 at Yuk Yuk's on Burrard Street. While in town shooting Good Luck Chuck, he dropped into the local comedy club to do a guest set -- a huge surprise for the crowd. As reported in The Province at the time, Cook performed for 35 minutes ahead of headliner Peter Kelamis before the club decided he needed to get off the stage. They cut his mic and blasted music from the speakers, a fine how-do-you-do for someone of his stature.
"What I thought was kind of a cool little pop-in, after the fact I learned it turned into a bit of a debacle locally," he says. "But I gotta tell you, from my perspective, I walked into the club and was welcomed with open arms. I had no clue at the time of performing that I was going to be ruffling any feathers. I just went in to give some comedy to that great club and learned after the fact that it was a bit of a fire storm once I left."
Cook says he was certainly "a little miffed," but it was just one of life's interesting moments.
"No harm, no foul. The fans got a cool show," he says. "And to the other comics that were talking smack, I can't tell you how many nights I got bumped in New York City by the Chris Rocks and the Ray Romanos. It goes with the territory. But, yeah, that was a bit of a strange night, but it would not deter me from wanting to come up and give a small show again for those great fans."
No small show this time around, though. His arena shows are an event. It's theatre in the round, and it works, he says, because of his amazing light, sound and camera crew.
"It's almost like going to a baseball game where you get to look at the field and see the game, but then you get to see perspective on a replay that you might not have seen before."
One of his openers, Al Delbene, has been a friend since the two were 14 years old and had stars in their eyes. "He was the first person I ever told outside of my family that I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. He actually said back to me, 'Wow, that's funny because I want to be a stand-up comedian.' Here we are now, gosh, 26-27 years later still performing together."
Cook has always been driven to succeed. He has set attendance records left and right, holds the endurance record at the Laugh Factory for performing seven straight hours, did the longest monologue in Saturday Night Live history, and sees his albums consistently on the Billboard charts. But, he says, he doesn't set out with records in mind.
"I'm not an outwardly competitive person. I really am not," he claims. "But I am very competitive with myself, which means pushing myself beyond being derivative of what I've done before and wanting to mail it in or repeat myself just to make a few dollars. So I guess by continuing to expand my repertoire, get better and continuing to push myself further, I've had some nice dalliances with some historic moments. And I attribute that to the fans. I really do. All of those successes come to great comedy fans who allow me to still come into their homes, into their lives, and they listen to my random thoughts and my point of view. It really is all about the fans. So those things say more about my fans than they do about me."
With his single-minded determination, it's really no surprise he's scaled the heights he has.
"I was pretty much driven from the beginning," he says. "I started stand-up when I was 19 and I told my folks, 'Listen, this is what I'm going to do. This is where I want to be.' My mom embraced it. My dad, it took him a little bit longer. What I told my folks was if you support me on this, I won't be just a kind of funny guy. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to take this to hopefully an upper echelon that you will be proud of and that I'll be proud of. So I didn't set out to do this just to sling a couple of funny jokes. I wanted to make a mark somewhere, and I feel very very fortunate that things worked out that way."