‘Dadvice’ to make you smile

Good ol’ dad has doled out some sage words of wisdom over the years, some we took because he was watching, but we discarded lots, too.

We reached out to some standup comics to find out the best “dadvice” they ever got.

Mark Hatfield, who went from the CFL to standup funny guy, said: “My dad was born and raised in the Rhodesian jungle in the 1940s, so most of his advice to a Canadian kid in the 1980s didn’t translate ...

“But the one that sticks out in my mind is when he went to sign me up for kindergarten, he accidentally signed himself up. When I told him, he said, ‘They’ll figure it out.’ Teachers called me Stanley for three years. My name is Mark.”

Briana Templeton, one half of the comedy duo The Templeton Philharmonic, said her dad “advised me to ‘try to show up half an hour early for everything.’ But, I tend to be the type of person who is always running late. The funny thing is: he is, too. I guess that’s genetics for you.”

“Trust no one,” offered the father of Gwynne Phillips, the other half of The Templeton Philharmonic. “I’m 90 per cent sure he works for CSIS. If he is a spy, he’s good at his job — because he won’t tell me.”

Mark Breslin, legendary standup comic and owner of Yuk Yuk’s, said his father advised him not to go into the comedy business.

“Show business is a place for malcontents; a sleazy sideshow of unsustainable income and societal disrespect. If I could just go to law school, he felt, I could hang around with a better class of criminal,” he said.

Kaitlin Mamie, one half of the comedy sketch duo Cheap Smokes, said her father told her: ““If you’re not having fun, what’s the point?” The phrase had a lot of meaning for her, she said.

“At the end of the day if you’re happy then you win the game of life — not the board game, although that game is kickass.”