Andy Ritchie – King Ding-A-Ling (CD) For Discount

Whether he’s falcon-hunting or reminiscing about the days when college girls checked him out (instead of keeping an eye on him), Andy Ritchie’s one to watch. With fresh, quick-witted comedy that evokes any number of influential greats, Ritchie’s first stand-up record seems to summon some of the classic silliness of Steve Martin (sans banjo) tempered with the open realism of Louis CK and the deft timing and wordplay of Mitch Hedberg. This is to say, Ritchie’s the real deal (and wouldn’t be on Stand Up! Records’ roster if he wasn’t).

On “King Ding-A-Ling,” the Montreal Just for Laughs festival and “Live at the Gotham” alum delves into history. Revisionist history, to be precise. Ritchie blows the lid off the Jihadi-Texan cabal. He exposes just why Canada’s not regularly bombed by, well, every other country in the world. He reveals that Iceland is actually Greenland, having been renamed by the Vikings in an attempt to elude Hitler. And, most scandalous of all, Ritchie lays bare the sham that was Huey Lewis’s claim against “Ghost Busters.” Plagiarism? Nay! Fortuitously-recorded personal meltdown? Maybe.

Ritchie’s subversive, but approachable, just like so many other secret Canadians, and just his baseball joke which you’re sure to repeat, rehearse, and pass off as your own on at least one future occasion would be worth the price of “King Ding-A-Ling.” It’ll be a fantastic surprise, then, when you notice the other twelve tracks, tripping from early morning water torture to Ludacris’ terrible advice to a little-known Third World hipster cache, are just as top notch.