You kids! Get offa Mike Bullard's lawn!

Mike Bullard is a man on his way to somewhere.

The observation is both literal and figurative on this mid-spring morning, as the former host of Open Mike pulls his car off to the side of a southern-Ontario highway so he can do an interview by cellphone while en route to a comedy gig.

"I've been busy," explains Bullard, who pretty much disappeared from public view after his seven-year run as Canada's first -- and, really, only -- successful late-night talk-show host ended half a decade ago. "I've been doing a lot of corporate stuff; I'm just on my way to do a gig for TD Bank right now... I've had two GM gigs cancelled in three months; that kind of told me something about the economy."

Bullard's definitely not-cancelled gig this weekend is at the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival, where he'll appear in the Saturday Night Late Gala, titled Cradle to the Grave (9:15 p.m., Pantages Playhouse Theatre, tickets $39.95 at Ticketmaster).

Aside from his standup schedule, Bullard has also been at work on a game-show pilot he's hoping will be picked up stateside by ABC -- the show is called Alimoney, and its premise is exactly what the title suggests.

"It's a game show for divorced people," he explains. "It's like The Newlywed Game turned on its ear. You go on, you answer questions about the breakdown of your marriage and how well you really knew each other, and then the winning couple at the end of the show gets to split a year's worth of alimony, 50-50.

"I've got a meeting with (ABC) in a couple of weeks. I'm pretty excited about it."

Bullard figures there's an opportunity for some seamless relationship-show symmetry in ABC's lineup, since his brother, writer/producer Pat Bullard, is host of the reality series Here Come the Newlyweds.

"I want to get back on TV, and I think this show is the ticket," he says. "I think it's got a lot of potential, and my brother's on ABC.... I said to them, 'You've got built-in advertorial here -- one brother hosting the newlywed show, the other one hosting a divorce show. Two drastically different guys, two drastically different shows -- you should put them back to back."

Bullard, who recently entered the 50-plus age bracket, says keeping a low profile after the end of Open Mike (and its short-lived Global TV followup, The Mike Bullard Show) was a deliberate move on his part. After leaving the TV job that he'd often described as the achievement of a lifelong dream, he needed to take a bit of time deciding what to try next. He had a brief stint hosting a show on XM satellite radio (2006-07), but since last year, the focus has been on re-starting his standup career.

"I was just in Kingston for a gig, and I also did the club there, Time To Laugh -- I did an hour a night for three nights, and I had a great time. You know me -- I just like to get up there and riff."

Bullard's comedy style is all about spontaneous interaction with the audience. That should make his appearance in Cradle to the Grave interesting, since the fest's themed shows demand pre-written material, vetted and approved by festival organizers and CBC brass.

"I actually enjoyed the process," he says. "I wrote the stuff in about four days -- when I was in Kingston, I riffed a bunch of stuff about being 50; I taped it, and when I got home, I gleaned the stuff I thought would be good for this show.

"It's about the fact that I know I'm 50, because not only am I appearing on CBC, I actually found myself watching it by accident last week."

Bullard says his 50-plus perspective will also be put to good use during Sunday's taping of The Debaters, when he'll face off against local product Irwin Barker to argue the merits of the Young Offenders' Act.

"I never used to give a (expletive) about it," he laughs, "and now I'm going, 'I think all kids should be put in jail and then earn their way out.' That's how I feel about it now, every time I go to the mall. That's how old I am."

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Check out my blog, Comedy Festering

Bullard bits

Saturday Night Late Gala: Cradle to the Grave (Saturday at 9:15 p.m., Pantages Playhouse Theatre, tickets $39.95), hosted by Kevin McDonald and featuring Big Daddy Tazz, John Wing, Maryellen Hooper, Teresa Pavlinek, The Williamson Playboys and Mark Little and Andrew Bush of sketch troupe Picnicface.

The Debaters (Sunday at 1 p.m., Winnipeg Art Gallery, sold out), hosted by Steve Patterson, with John Wing, George Westerholm, Ron Sparks, The Williamson Playboys, Al Rae, Teresa Pavlinek, Marc Maron, Maryellen Hooper, Sam Easton, Seán Cullen and Irwin Barker.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 18, 2009 C3