photo courtesy louie anderson
12/31
Other than his St. Paul upbringing, what makes stand-up comic Louie Anderson quintessentially Midwestern? In the ’80s heyday of observational humor, he put an affable face (albeit one with flashes of Peter Lorre) on the comedy of the annoyed. Maybe it’s his cuss-free approach—but that was Seinfeld, too, and Anderson’s considering adding to his vocabulary. It could be his voice—hollow ‘o’s—or how his stern father and kooky mother figure into his sets. The latter inspired Anderson’s Emmy-winning turn last year as a doting, self-possessed, tic-ridden matriarch in FX show Baskets, where he cuts through drag kitsch by conveying an empathetic depth redolent of Midwestern motherhood. Celebrate the new year at the Ames Center in Burnsville with a comedian catching his second wind in pop culture.
