Laughter may be the best medicine, but it doesn't always pay the bills, alas.
Hence, the unfunny fact that Bloomington-Normal's lone full-time mecca for mirth, Laugh House, has closed its doors.
Temporarily, hopefully; forever, possibly.
Owner Mike Gardner isn't saying either way just yet … specifics are still being dealt with.
Owner Mike Gardner isn't saying either way just yet … specifics are still being dealt with.
But he knows one thing for certain: It takes a village to raise sufficient laughs. And, so far, the population hasn't come forth in sufficient numbers.
Which surprises him, frankly.
“We'd had several weeks of extremely low attendance,” Gardner notes of recent times, including a surprisingly unsuccessful stand for one of the bigger names to grace the Laugh stage, Tom Arnold, a seeming ace in the hole.
"We lost very big on that one," he says.
The net result: “I've been losing too much money overall ... we could be permanently closed or temporarily closed.”
The portals to the downtown Bloomington club at 108 E. Market St. have been locked since the last weekend of June, with no plans to reopen for the summer's remainder.
According to Gardner, who took over the club two years ago this fall, the traditional summer ritual is to close for the always-slow July 4th weekend.
But the overall slack summer business motivated him to close a week early, and not reopen post-Fourth.
Part of Gardner's challenge, he says, has been the demands of his career as a working comedian, which keeps him off on tour a chunk of the time.
He also operates another Laugh House in Kokomo, Ind., where the population is half the size of the Twin Cities but, by his count, twice as crazy for full-time comedy.
“It's thriving very well,” in fact.
Bottom line, though: “My career is keeping me away from Bloomington too much of the time.”
Another hard fact of life is that no comedy club in a market this size can book a big brand name, week in and week out.
During his two-year watch, Gardner has landed some big ones, including “Saturday Night Live” alum Tim Meadows, “Jackass” poster boy Steve-O, reality show alum Jamie Kennedy and a raft of “Bob & Tom Show” regulars.
"I can't bring in a big name every week, so a club like mine has to develop a regular attendance who will continue to come for even the non-big names."
That wasn't his feeling when the Indianapolis emigre arrived in Bloomington for the first time ever several years back, all the better to perform a show at Laugh under its previous ownership.
"I had a blast," Gardner recalled in an earlier GO! interview when the prospects seemed brighter. "There aren't a lot of comedy clubs in old downtown areas like this. I fell in love with the town, and I loved the potential of the comedy club."
Alas, the previous owner had learned his lesson the hard way, poised on the brink of bankruptcy when Gardner stepped in to take over.
In the two years since, he's implemented renovations, including a new kitchen. And earlier this year, he rechristened the former Laugh Comedy Club as "Laugh House."
Is there hope?
Possibly, says Gardner, if someone would be interested in partnering with him, and could be around full-time, especially during those times when he's on the road.
Come September, he says, a final decision will likely have been made as to whether the Laugh House still has a home in Bloomington.
