Tsawwassen actor gets foolish in online comedy

Fools For Hire is a comedy webseries about two guys, Vancouver's Mike Cavers (left) and Tsawwassen's Nick Harrison, doing whatever it takes to survive the often humiliating world of corporate entertainment.

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If the scenes in the new YouTube comedy series "Fools For Hire" seem ridiculous, it's because they are. They're also based on real life events.

The show, created by Tsawwassen's Nick Harrison and Vancouver's Mike Cavers, is inspired by the true story of working in the entertainment industry at the bottom of the food chain doing corporate gigs.

"We did a murder mystery on a cruise ship one time and it wasn't until we got there that we were told everybody on the ship was blind," said Cavers, filling in for Harrison who is away for the holidays.

"It's rough weather so people are falling all over, the seeing eye dogs' leash are going around people's legs, and nobody can get anything because all the clues are visual."

Cavers describes another time when he was playing Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island when an elephant stole his can of Coca Cola.

"It grabbed my coke and popped it in his mouth and started choking on it. I had to call the elephant keeper and he had to ran out and get the elephant to go down on his knees and put his hand down elephant's throat to fish it out."

Cavers said he got into trouble over that one.

The show, which features cutaways to the actors talking to the camera, is inspired by such comedy classics as Flight of the Conchords, The Office, and Modern Family.

"We're, let's hope, slightly more loserish on this show than we really are," said Cavers, adding it's otherwise a pretty accurate depiction of what people in show biz go through to put food on the table in expensive Vancouver or Tsawwassen.

To illustrate the point that these events aren't ancient history, Cavers says he and Harrison recently did a gig playing matching "Buddy the Elf" characters at the Pan Pacific Hotel for wealthy mining executives' Christmas dinner.

Also appearing on the show is Gary Jones from Stargate Atlantis and Jackson Davies from The Beachcombers.

"It actually attracts some notable names in the industry because everyone's been there. Everyone's had to do corporate entertainment between gigs."

Also involved in the show is local filmmaker Neil Every, who directs and edits all of the show.

Cavers said they will release two more episodes after Christmas, but the first four can already been seen on their YouTube channel "FoolsForHire."

"What we need now is for people to tune in, subscribe to our YouTube channel, just tell us if you like it. And with web-based entertainment it's amazingly interactive. People can give us their feedback and it can actually influence what we do next."