Philadelphia Comics Are Killing It! Helium Picks Philly’s Phunniest This Week

Congratulations to Mikey Garcia who was named Philly’s Phunniest last night at Helium Comedy Club!

We missed the finals, but we were down in Philadelphia last week to help judge the Philly’s Phunniest competition semi finals and the level of talent was amazing.  Twenty stand up comedians made it to the semi-finals, and performed over two nights.  There wasn’t a single  bad performance over course of the two nights, including the hilarious and amazing host for both shows, James Hesky. James is a former PP winner who now lives and performs in New York City, and you can catch him at the Creek and the Cave and clubs all over town.

10 comics performed each night, and were scored by judges on originality, stage presence, and audience reaction. The three best scores from each night moved on to the finals. Tuesdays semi-finalists  were all outstanding and if you love comedy you’ll want to check them out.  All hysterical and with completely original and different styles– Darryl Charles, Shane Gillis and Anthony Moore.  We’re not spoiling anything in their sets, but Shane Gillis did a brilliant bit about when being white used to be cool that was unlike anything we’ve ever heard. He started strong and just got better and better.  Daryl Charles had the audience in his pocket from minute one with the delivery of a seasoned veteran, and he killed. Two words, Toy Store.  Anthony Moore was a crowd favorite who took on the topic of barbers– and murdered with a new and original take on a well worn topic that literally had the audience howling.  It was tough to pick winners, everyone was so damn funny.

Darryl Charles, Shane Gillis and Anthony Moore

Wednesday’s semifinalists  were an even tougher choice.  KeithFromUpDaBlock, Omar Scruggs, Alex Gruber and advanced to the finals.  Keith was first out for the night wearing a gold printed shirt that just bounced light all around the room and matched his frenetic but tight energy with near flawless delivery.  Alex Grubard was pure energy too but it was a completely different energy from Keiths. Grubard was like a powerhouse, which you might not expect when he first walked out.  He’s also got confidence for miles, and has declared himself officially the funniest comic in —– well we’ll let you see him perform yourself to find out, but Bob Sagat might want to sit this one out.  The third finalist, Omar Scruggs taught everyone how to act in the hood, but it was his “skinny sidewalk” bit that clinched the win for him.  Speaking of skinny, special mention goes out to Matthew Tsang who had moments of real greatness in his set, and Andy Nolan who has some physical components of his set that the audience was still talking about on their way out.

Alex Gruber, KeithFromUpDaBlock, Omar Scruggs,

After everyone had performed the judges had the chance to pick a wildcard, one extra person, who would move on to the finals. That wildcard, Mikey Garcia went on to win the whole thing. The night we saw him, Mikey had the unfortunate placement to go on right after the highly dynamic, highly energetic and hilarious funny Sean Jay Jackson (who by the way got DQ’ed for ignoring the light), and Mikey’s style couldn’t be more opposite-  but we loved him from his first line, he’s a superstar in the making.

Congratulations to Mikey Garcia for taking first place, Anthony Moore for a strong second and Shane Gillis in third.  If you have a chance to see any of these guys, do it because even though most people will tell you contests don’t matter, every one of these guys were amazing.   The only letdown of the week was that we didn’t get to see any of Philly’s female comics make it to the semis, but we’ll be back next year, hoping to see a turnaround.

Shout out to fellow judges Sheena Lester from Philly Weekly, Rob Calvert from the John DiBella Show, and Jay and Shelton from ComedyFoodSports.com and the Comedy Food Sports Podcast.

Follow these guys on twitter!  And always follow @heliumcomedy and visit heliumcomedy.com.

Darryl Charles @DarrylDarryl

Shane Gillis @ShaneMGillis

Anthony Moore @AllThatAndMoore

Omar Scruggs @OmarScruggs

KeithFromUpDaBlock @FromUpDaBlock

Alex Grubard @alexgrubard

MikeyGarcia @iMikeyGarcia

James Hesky @JamesHesky

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