Who are we? - Where'd we come from?
Call us a group, a troupe, a bunch of guys and a gal, or something you'd never say to your mother... as long as you call us funny.
An early promo picture
So this is what we looked like... ummm ...a while ago.
We all graduated from The Players Workshop of The Second City in 1984 and have been doing some form of comedy with and without each other ever since.
We've played an unbelievable amount of live sets in comedy clubs in and around the greater Chicagoland area. We had our own radio show on WLUP-AM called "The Duck Logic Comedy Cavalcade." We had a second show on WLUP-FM called "Duck Logic Theater." We had our own TV show on Centel Cable called "Cableville, USA," an episode of which aired on PBS Ch 11's "Image Union." We've made commercials for both radio and TV. We wrote a book based on our popular character Joe, The Love Potato titled "Learn To Be A Man Again." We wrote and were segment producers for Jonathan Brandmeier's "Johnny B on TV" for NBC, and we wrote and starred in a comedy revue at The Theatre Building.
We were unstoppable as a group until we stopped. Now, we're at it again.
Just try an' stop us this time!
We all graduated from The Players Workshop of The Second City in 1984 and have been doing some form of comedy with and without each other ever since.
We've played an unbelievable amount of live sets in comedy clubs in and around the greater Chicagoland area. We had our own radio show on WLUP-AM called "The Duck Logic Comedy Cavalcade." We had a second show on WLUP-FM called "Duck Logic Theater." We had our own TV show on Centel Cable called "Cableville, USA," an episode of which aired on PBS Ch 11's "Image Union." We've made commercials for both radio and TV. We wrote a book based on our popular character Joe, The Love Potato titled "Learn To Be A Man Again." We wrote and were segment producers for Jonathan Brandmeier's "Johnny B on TV" for NBC, and we wrote and starred in a comedy revue at The Theatre Building.
We were unstoppable as a group until we stopped. Now, we're at it again.
Just try an' stop us this time!
walter michka - then...
James f. russel - then...
DAVE-ID DUNLOSKY - THEN...
TIMOTHY THOMAS - THEN...
ANNE GUNN - THEN
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and now
and now
AND NOW
AND NOW
AND NOW
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Besides being a comedian, Walter is also a Chicago writer and filmmaker. He's written for NBC-TV, Lorimar Telepictures, KVVU FOX5 in Las Vegas, and WLUP radio in Chicago. He's created commercials for Fruitopia, Reebok, and Corn Flakes and several of his short films have appeared on PBS. His short story "Gut Feeling" was fairly recently published in Clackamas Literary Journal. Jim was the head writer of the comedy group The Construction Company and the only writer for their show "Why Be Funny When You Can Be Cruel?" which aired on WDCB, The College Of DuPage radio station. He can be found on top of the vast hill of his memories looking for the fastest way down. He builds digital TV antennas from scratch and knows the difference between an "incredible" and a merely "good" gelato. Light oozes from his eyes.
Dave-id spent 14 years writing TV and magazine advertising for such brands as Oscar Mayer, Butterfinger, Kraft Singles and Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre , to name a few. He's written for NBC-TV, HBO's The Comedy Channel, and Kevin Matthew's Blue Night Special, in which he was a featured performer. He's been heard in commercials as a voice actor for Ensure, Edy's Ice Cream & Androgel. He's also a ukulele player and records original music with his brother under the name Davenport Johnson. Tim wrote and performed with Bob Odenkirk for "The Prime Time Special" in Carbondale, IL, and with Steve Meisner for "American Chaos," an internet comedy site from 2004-2006. One part overserved sales convention, one part middle age miracle of modern medicine, Tim is everything technology wishes it was and science has warned mankind about for decades. You can see him playing Willie Loman in The National Epileptic Theater Version of Death Of A Salesman. Tim is the only member of Duck Logic who is paid by the word.
As “The Woman,” Anne’s an important part of Duck Logic. She’s Edie, the Breakfast Fairy, Fishy Brown, Felicia Susman, Trudy Sunspot, and pretty much every other female role. Anne’s dayjob is musical theater around Chicago where she’s starred in Evita at the Marriot Theater as Eva Peron, played Ruth in Pirates of Penzance at Drury Lane/Oakbrook, Pitty Sing in The Hot Mikado at Drury Lane/South. Plus a jillion other roles at Pheasant Run, Chicago Shakespeare Co, Candlelight, The Goodman, Apple Tree, Apollo, and Briar Street. Whew! |
Additional Members and comedy cohorts
The above five folks are the core group and still active "Duckers."
But over the years though there were many others who added to the story that is Duck Logic Comedy.
When we graduated from The Players Workshop of The Second City we formed a seven person group... the four guys mentinoned above along with Michael Crawford (Joe, The Love Potato) and two women seen here in our first promo picture. The one in the upper right is Lindsey Leghorn (what a great comedy name!) and the one on the lower right is Holly Schulman.
Lindsey left as soon as we got our first booking at a local comedy club. We think it may be that she thought we were never really going to go through with it, but we were never really sure. Holly stayed with us for quite a while performing in many shows starting at The Chicago Comedy Showcase.
But over the years though there were many others who added to the story that is Duck Logic Comedy.
When we graduated from The Players Workshop of The Second City we formed a seven person group... the four guys mentinoned above along with Michael Crawford (Joe, The Love Potato) and two women seen here in our first promo picture. The one in the upper right is Lindsey Leghorn (what a great comedy name!) and the one on the lower right is Holly Schulman.
Lindsey left as soon as we got our first booking at a local comedy club. We think it may be that she thought we were never really going to go through with it, but we were never really sure. Holly stayed with us for quite a while performing in many shows starting at The Chicago Comedy Showcase.
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Sandy Beyda, not pictured, was the next female to join what was quickly becoming a sort of "boys club for boys who wouldn't join a boy's club." She was followed by
Denise Sandler, who's smiling at you from inside the TV in the promo shot to right. All these women were talented, and funny, and had at least one thing in common. They either couldn't or wouldn't put up with the acerbic backstage style that was Duck Logic at the time. Served us right. At this point our live performances became all male. Anne Gunn, who graduated from The Players Workshop of The Second City in the class just after us, had started dating Walter at the time, they eventually married and she quickly became our "go to" woman. She didn't do live gigs, as she was very busy becoming a staple in the Chicago musical theatre scene. She would, however, do whatever we asked of her in both the TV show about the last town on earth to get cable TV for Centel Cable called "Cableville, USA," and the radio show. And she did it with gusto, pride and enormous amount of talent. We all came off looking better working with her and we knew it. Her sparkling talent as a comedic actress and singer, allowed her to play any type of character we threw at her. Her improv abilities and strong personality let her comeback at anything we dished out behind the scenes or she simply ignored our boy-ish bull. Either way she was like gift from comedy heaven. |
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When we landed The Duck Logic Comedy Cavalcade for WLUP-AM, we felt filling the kind of program we wanted to produce, a weekly show in the tradition of The National Lampoon Radio Hour and Firesign Theatre, and doing it for two hours might just be too much for even our egos to handle writing.
So we called in some friends that we felt were up to the challenge. Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show, Breaking Bad) had already worked with Tim in college. Tom Gianas (Saturday Night Live writer, Second City director) and Ken Campbell (Herman's Head, The Practice) had both been in the successful comedy group Contents Under Pressure, formed from another class at The Players Workshop. That's Tom on the far right. Bob is next to him, and Ken is sitting above Tim wearing the baseball hat. They were seen occasionally as guests stars on "Cableville, USA" as well. It was during this time that Steve Meisner, a member of the band Bucket Number Six, offered his musical services, turning our song parodies into something to actually enjoy listening to instead of just laugh at. (umm... with?) For eight months we pumped out commercial parodies, songs, and skits of all kinds as well as tackling long-form comedy in our little "theatre of the mind," sounding like everything from the golden age of radio to SNL. We produced enough comedy together to last a lifetime... or eight months anyway. |
After that we continued to perform comedy in clubs in and around Chicago for a few years before disbanding to research life and gain more insights into what makes people laugh. We studied humanity, and ourselves, through long hours of house painting, teaching, advertising, music making, raising kids and just plain living… until we were ready to synthesize all that information into another outpouring of comedy goodness. We hope you like it.