Mike Toomey takes you on a journey back into 60’s and 70’s TV Land. In the show, he does many of his fabulous imitations and relates how his childhood television watching has shaped his adult life. This multimedia presentation features over 200 slide and sound bytes not to mention Toomey’s dead-on impressions of your favorite TV celebrities. Mike is a nationally touring headline comedian who has been seen on MTV, Comedy Central and HBO’s Aspen Comedy Festival.
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Comedian turned TV-watching into career
Keeping it clean and clever, veteran funnyman Mike Toomey returns to Zanies Comedy Nightclub in Vernon Hills for a three night stand starting May 28.
His material could include detailing a tortuous Greyhound bus ride, dealing with raising four children, explaining why Cap'n Crunch is his favorite cereal or impersonating 19th century President William Henry Harrison.
"He was only president for 30 days and no one knows anything about him so I can make him anything I want him to be," he said.
Entertaining audiences professionally since 1982, Toomey, a Class of 1981 Glenbard North High School grad, starting getting laughs at home at a very early age.
"When I was as young as five, I knew those Stan Freberg parodies of Jack Webb and Lawrence Welk verbatim and my family would provide me with an audience."
A prime example of keeping his comedy clever can be found in "Mike Toomey: TV & Other Stuff," a hilarious CD that features such studio-produced comic gems as "An American Werewolf in Mayberry" and Johnny Cash singing about attending "Fulsom Elementary."
Known as the man of many voices, Toomey can be often seen on the WGN-TV morning news in a variety of comic guises. He recently appeared as Batman to discuss the current economy.
"Everyone is feeling it," said Toomey. "Even billionaire Bruce Wayne, after his dealings with Bernie Madoff, has lost a lot of money. The Batcave is in foreclosure and the Batmobile has been repossessed. Batman is now taking the bus and he wrote a book on how to live on a dollar a day. It's called Batman and Ramen."
Toomey also appears frequently on WGN-TV as Skip Parker, a fill-in Cubs sports announcer and baseball analyst who has yet to broadcast a single game since being hired in 1977.
Sports are a part of his stand-up material including a story about recently getting injured playing a baseball game on his kid's Wii.
"As you get older, it's the way that you get injured that is embarrassing. When you are in your 20s and you're helping your friend change a tire because he doesn't have a jack, you can hurt your back. In my 40s, I hurt my back reaching behind me to turn off the water in the tub."
Toomey also is the creator and star of the multi-media one-man stage show "TV and Me," which ran for an entire summer at the Apollo Theatre in Chicago in 1999.
Toomey will be performing "TV and Me," the first three weekends in June at the Skokie Theatre. Call (847) 677-7761 for details.
"As a kid, TV was my obsession. My principal said you need to stop watching so much because no one ever made a career out of watching TV. So that became my quest to prove her wrong," he said.
Among the shows under scrutiny are "The Andy Griffith Show," "Batman," "Gilligan's Island," and "Hogan's Heroes."
