Funeral for Comedy Legend Virgil Soapfloats This Saturday In Los Angeles

funeral notice

Comedian Ian Abramson, who is best known for his highly creative “Seven Minutes in Purgatory” touring comedy show, has announced the passing of legendary prop comedian Virgil Soapfloats.  Abramson will be holding funeral services for Soapfloats this Saturday in Los Angeles, at the NerdMelt Showroom at Meltdown Comics this Saturday at 7pm, because, as he put it, “Virgil would have wanted it that way.”

There will be eulogies, stories, tributes, and a sponsor at this Saturday’s funeral service, which is sure to be unlike any funeral you’ve ever attended.  Bob’s Big Boy Burbank will be on hand with tshirts, and 50 $5 gift cards to pass around, and according to Abramson “the Big Boy himself, in costume” will be there to celebrate Virgil’s life and his comedy.

“I’ve been a big fan of his for years and years,” Abramson told us. “He was kind of the sad figure of never quite making it but that’s what I loved about him.  He continued to do comedy all the way from vaudville to just a couple weeks ago and always found different twists on whatever was going on in comedy, and used his props to try to say something new.”

When congress was working on passing a very controversial bill he would go onstage with uncooked pasta and made a little puppet out of it and would recite the “Spaghettisburgh Address.

In the course of his 130 year life and career, Virgil did it all, but one dream he never realized was performing at the NerdMelt theater.  “know he always wanted to perform at NerdMelt but was never able to get booked so this is kind of the ultimate going away memorial funeral for him– finally getting to be at the one venue that wouldn’t book him.” Virgil was estranged from much of his family, but friends, fans, and fellow comedians will be on hand to speak on behalf of the beloved but lessor known prop comic.

Abramson who has been a fan for years, but only recently got to know him personally, shared his favorite Soapfloats career moment with us.  “When congress was working on passing a very controversial bill he would go onstage with uncooked pasta and made a little puppet out of it and would recite the “Spaghettisburgh Address.” it was very funny, hard hitting I really think it made a difference.”

Your curator for the evening, Ian Abramson, is a young comedian himself, living in Los Angeles.  Abramson credits his own comedy beginnings to the city of Chicago. His popular and critically lauded comedy show “Seven Minutes in Purgatory” explores what happens when comedians perform live for audiences without being able to see or hear whether the audience is reacting.  The show got its start in Chicago and now runs in Los Angeles and tours festivals around the country.

Abramson’s own comedy influences are Steve Martin, Andy Kaufman, Maria Bamford, Zach Galifianakis, and of course, Virgil Soapfloats, prop comic.  As he describes them, “a lineage of people who have tried to push themselves, respected for the fun different way of doing comedy that they have carved out for themselves.”

Virgil Soapfloats Copy

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