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David Cornel’s Laughter for Paws to support SPCA

March 10, 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

David Cornel is a stand-up comic who loves animals and is determined to help out with those at the shelters. He is coming to Orangeville to do a show at the Horizons Event Centre  at Mono Plaza, on Highway 10, north of Hockley Road. This fun and beneficial for the shelters is happening on April 1 at 8:00 p.m.

“You could say my entire show is about the weird and the dysfunctional,” Mr. Cornel admitted.  “What’s with road rage? Perfectly even tempered people get into their cars and become maniacs because of some – maybe imagined – offence on the part of another person on the road…

“When you think – and I’m thinking all the time – about things like that, you get a different perspective and you can get a joke.”

He maintains that women and men drive differently from one another and he blames eyesight for the difference.

“Women are more inclined to tailgate,” he declared but added, “I was reading an article about our physical differences and spatially – we view the world differently – women and men’s eyes work differently – there are theories and suppositions about it all.”

About the animals: called Laughter for Paws Show, Orangeville is Mr. Cornel’s fourth town of doing stand up for the animals.

“I’m convoluted about the whole thing,” he explained. “I can’t volunteer because I’m a single dad and I’m on the road, doing shows – booking them, producing them. I do it all as well as the funding and then I give money back to the shelters in the town where I’m performing.”

To help him in his efforts, Mr. Cornel looks to find sponsors within the community where he is staging his show. Here is his deal: a sponsor gives him $300 and he does the rest by of social media; pamphlets to go into the bags of retail stores.

He features the logos of sponsors on his show posters throughout the town and his banners at the show.  Appearance in his bi-week spoof newspaper and a year’s spot on his very popular Facebook page.                  

Mr. Cornel likes to emphasize the extent of the problem of mistreated and abandoned animals in this country. A whopping 11 million feral cats wander the streets – unimaginable with a population of only 36 million. Christmas and fall are bad times for animals being left to fend for themselves in the country, try to charm their way into new homes or adopt barns as possible shelter and places where they might be fed.

Shelters are, as we all know, overwhelmed with the cost of caring for the animals that come their way. Certainly, every local newspaper runs a weekly sad story about some perfectly wonderful potential pet looking for a happy home.

So, this is Mr. Cornel’s way of supporting their work. He does a great show; gives solid return on advertising investments from his sponsors and the shelters in each town where he is performing receive a solid donation at the end of the time.

We talked a bit about his history. As a young man, he was, for a while, a host at the Ontario Science Centre, much of which presentations had very humorous aspects to them, like dipping their hands quickly into a vat of liquid nitrogen – dodgy? Yes! And shocking but there were technical reasons why it was possible not to loose the hand to the extreme cold of the liquid. Anyway, it was the beginning of getting a reaction from an audience that set him looking for more.

At the end of some of the presentations, people asked him if he did stand-up and, one day he decided he would, that they were seeing something in him he had not yet recognized.  So he worked at the Laugh Resort – did jokes; people laughed – went independent and never looked back.

He got an agent and started doing tours out west; did bars when that was why people were going to them on those specific nights – to hear the comics and have a laugh.

“I did a show in Erin,” he mentioned; “it was wonderful.” He assured us about the upcoming show on April 1, “I’m there to make you laugh.” Sponsors will get a great deal and the local animal shelters will get some financial help. There will be door prizes, raffle and a silent auction, all in aid of the animal charities.

For all the information and to buy tickets, check out the event website: orangevillelaughs.wix.com/comedy.

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