Dylan Brogan
Meghan Fitzpatrick (left) and Frank Sommers toss barbs at each other with im-pun-ity.
Greg Andrzejewski is on stage at the High Noon Saloon with a few notes in his hand. He’s one of five contestants competing in Pundamonium — Madison’s monthly pun slam. It’s the first round and Andrzejewski has two minutes to riff on the topic of “cows.” He hasn’t had much time to ruminate.
“Sorry it took me so long to get here. I had a lot of objects to moo-neuver around,” says Andrzejewski, who is director of research at a local data recovery company. “Went to a bar with a [friend] once. He’s like, ‘want a sip of beer?’ I said I’d rather have a hol-stein.”
The audience groans with delight at the wordplay. Andrzejewski herd about Pundamonium from his coworker Ashley Toy. She sidles up to the mic next. Her topic is “at the train station.”
“If you get accused of a crime and your lawyer tells you to plead insanity, do you have a loco-motive?” asks Toy. “All of you in the back. You guys are looking all a bored.”
Things really go off the rails in the second round. The competitors now have only 30 seconds to prepare another two minutes of puns on a different subject. If they pause too long, hecklers are allowed to chime in with their own puns. Angela Czahor has drawn “fathers” and she looks so excited she might just pop.
“I’ve had the same dad my whole life. Feels like a paternity,” says Czahor, who works for a global management consulting firm. “He’s a pretty traditional dad. He’s got a dad bod or, as we are now calling it, the father figure.”
It’s Frank Sommers’ first time competing in Pundamonium. The Madison-based composer and lyricist unleashes a masterpiece after announcing his topic: “at the art museum.”
“I’m not really sure where to start. I’m just going to sit back and Pic-ass-o,” says Sommers, who is struggling a bit. “I’m just hanging here.”
“Let’s Van Gogh,” shouts a heckler.
“Do some impression-ists,” another audience member adds.
Crafting puns is more easel-y said than done. Art Allen, a punmaster who created and hosts Pundamonium, explains to Isthmus what a pun is.
“Puns are the humorous use of similar sounding words or the same word with two different meanings,” says Allen, who runs and owns Riddle Room, an escape room company in Minneapolis. “The double meaning is the core.”
But Allen is no pundamentalist. “Each show we have audience judges. I didn’t want this to be a contest won on technicality,” he says. “The audience does a great job of picking a winner who delivered the best performance. I like to say, ‘it’s not Rulesdamonium.’”
Allen also holds regular pun contests in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. He’s been doing Pundamonium in Madison for four years.
“At first, I was worried whether anyone would come to this. I didn’t realize there was this really unserved community of people who want to see puns. Not the people who want to make puns. The people who want to watch people make puns,” says Allen. “Madison is a great pun town. I get the largest crowds in Madison. People here are just really into puns.”
The third round pits two competitors against each other with zero prep time. They hurl puns back-and-forth like it’s a rap battle. At tonight’s competition, former champ Czahor faces Meghan Fitzpatrick, a Pundamonium newbie. The final topic is “cats.”
“Don’t take these too litter-ally,” says Czahor.
“I’m fe-line pretty good about this,” says Fitzpatrick.
“What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?” asks Czahor. “One has claws at the end of its paws. The other is a pause at the end of a clause.”
Czahor ended up winning the whole kitten kaboodle.
Next Pundamonium: Aug. 6, 7 p.m.
Fitzpatrick on “furniture”: “I really hate going to the gym. That’s a rela-table topic.”
Andrzejewski on “a trip to the eye doctor”: “I’ve been trying to make an appointment with my eye doctor. I keep calling and calling and just can’t seem to make contact.”
Czahor on “maps”: “My parents were mapmakers...they gave me one piece of advice: Never forget your routes. I went off to school to study mapmaking. I didn’t do very well, though. All my grades were below sea level. It’s probably because I missed orientation.”
Sommers on “summer camp” (no pun intended): “In the insect version of The Apprentice, Trump fires flies.”
Toy on “alcohol”: “One of my favorite books from ninth grade English: Tequila Mockingbird…. The beauty of puns is that they are in the eye of the beer-holder.”
