Mike, Come Home. We Love You.

SO A COUPLE of commenters took me to task for linking to a bad U.S. review of MVP yesterday. I'll have more to say about that sometime down the line, but as somebody already pointed out below, that's nothing compared to the drubbing Mike Myers took in the Times today.

Mr. Myers, a writer and producer as well as the star, seems to have lost his touch. The movie’s takeaway catchphrase is “Mariska Hargitay,” which is used by the title character as a fake-Hindi spiritual greeting. This is almost hilarious the first 11 or so times he does it, but by the time Guru Pitka (Mr. Myers) says “Mariska Hargitay” to Ms. Hargitay herself, it’s somehow less amusing than it should be.

Which might sum up “The Love Guru” in its entirety but only at the risk of grievously understating the movie’s awfulness. A whole new vocabulary seems to be required. To say that the movie is not funny is merely to affirm the obvious. The word “unfunny” surely applies to Mr. Myers’s obnoxious attempts to find mirth in physical and cultural differences but does not quite capture the strenuous unpleasantness of his performance. No, “The Love Guru” is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again.

And this is, come to think of it, something of an achievement. What is the opposite of a belly laugh? An interesting question, in a way, and to hear lines like “I think I just made a happy wee-wee” or “I’m making diarrhea noises in my cup” or to watch apprentice gurus attack one another with urine-soaked mops is to grasp the answer. Please don’t misunderstand: I’m not opposed to infantile, regressive, scatological humor. Indeed, I consider myself something of a connoisseur. Or maybe a glutton. So it’s not that I object to the idea of, say, witnessing elephants copulate on the ice in the middle of a Stanley Cup hockey match, or seeing a dwarf sent flying over the same ice by the shock of defibrillator paddles. But it will never be enough simply to do such things. They must be done well.

The funniest thing I ever saw Mike Myers do wasn't Austin Powers or Wayne (alright, the original version of Wayne, done onstage at Second City in Toronto, with Dana Anderson, where Wayne tried to get his Girlfriend back at the CNE, was pretty damn funny.) Nope. Not a bit.

For that crown, there's little bits and pieces that only Torontonians will know. Back in University, poor, not a lot of money, in the late 1980's, there were two reliable and cheap sources of entertainment for me and my pack of Radio and TV compadres: you could go to a Kids in the Hall taping, or you could hit the Second City at the Old Firehall, and see the free after-show improv sets.

Now never mind the fact that I'm now working with Mark Wilson, one of the guys I saw on that stage with Myers -- which is awesome and weird -- but I also got a chance to see funny in the form of Mike Myers just filling time. He'd do a bit with the lights gone crazy, and him in this Wendy's-like pigtailed wig, and somebody would say, "And now, David Cronenberg's Anne of Green Gables." And Mike would come out in the wig and sing, "I'm Anne of Green Gables Yearrrrrrrrgggh." And he'd give the evil eye. And the house would come down. (the variation on this, which I did for years, "Sean Connery in Anne of Green Gables," where Mike would just come out and say, "I'm Anne of Green Gables yah bahstard."

So, too, his short bit of a Scotsman speaking French. Oh, you see that in print and you think, hey, yeah, that might be funny. But you have no fucking idea, chuckles. No idea.

There are other choices you could make for Myers' funniest. Maybe it was the kibitzing he'd do late night on CityLimits, the groundbreaking CityTV video show (back in the days when everything about CityTv was still groundbreaking. Sigh.)

I also fondly remember a stage show done with a guy named, I think, Neil Mullarkey (am I remembering that right?) -- who was a friend he lived with when he was in the UK. That show was funny and weird and off the wall.

So yeah, I kind of cringed a bit at the leadup to The Love Guru. And in all the pre-press, Myers' constant invocation of his deceased father seems to indicate that there's a wound there that hasn't healed, that he's hurting and that he's still got some stuff to work through.

But the guy is a fucking brilliant comic. And he made a huge movie in Toronto last summer that employed a lot of people. And the thing that was true on that Second City stage all those years ago still holds true: you don't change the culture and you don't come up with fearless, funny, and wonderful without risking the occasional whiff.

So whatever, Mike. If Pitka doesn't do it for you, I hope we don't have to wait six more years. You make me smile, and like Vienna, Toronto waits for you.