Minneapolis improv comedy kings bow down to 'Harold'

"Chia Pets!"

The voice rang out above dozens of others as the near-sellout crowd at Huge Improv Theater scrambled to suggest something nostalgic.

Then members of an improv comedy team stepped up to relate anecdotes and associations the phrase brought to mind — like how the shoulder-pad fashion trend of the 1980s made every woman look like a linebacker.

Ten minutes later, the team and the audience were in the thick of three off-kilter narratives, following a quintet of musically inclined fur trappers; a father intent on watching bizarre VHS tapes with his son; and a quest for the secret of Rob Lowe's eternal youth. By the end of a half-hour, all of those seemingly unrelated stories managed to dovetail into something resembling a satisfying conclusion.

Welcome to the Harold. Or at least, one interpretation of the Harold. It's all part of Huge's "Harold Turns 50" celebration of what's arguably the most important cornerstone of long-form improv.

So what exactly is a Harold? Basically, it's a set of guidelines that help an improv team develop a scene. "The simplest explanation is just three story lines, each visited three times," said Huge co-founder Butch Roy.

You can pick out the familiar beats of the Harold in just about every TV sitcom.

"A group of performers will take an audience suggestion and build on that idea in ways that are unpredictable even to the performers," said Molly Chase, director of House of Whimsy, one of three teams that are performing at Huge every Saturday through the end of October. "There will likely be moments of poignancy and humor, and the whole room — audience and improvisers — are in it together.

"It's immediate, it has never happened before, and will never happen again."

The first Harold was performed in 1967 by the Committee, a San Francisco-based comedy group known for experimenting with narrative structures that employed improv games and exercises.

When the group decided that it needed a name for its creation, one member reportedly cracked that "Harold" would be nice. The handle stuck, to the slight chagrin of generations of performers who have had to explain its origin.

Committee member Del Close dedicated much of his career to honing and teaching the Harold. In the 1994 book "Truth in Comedy," generally regarded as the improviser's bible, he and co-authors Charna Halpern and Kim "Howard" Johnson explain that "the Harold is like the space shuttle, incorporating all of the developments and discoveries that have gone before it into one new, superior design."

Close's efforts as an instructor and co-founder of Chicago's iO Theater became the foundation for much of American comedy as we know it.

No local venue feels that influence more acutely than Huge Theater. With "Harold Turns 50," Minnesota's most visible improv venue is paying homage to its roots and giving some of the Twin Cities' top improvisers a chance to get back to the basics.

"There are a lot of improv structures, but there's something magic about the Harold, the way you start with an opening and it brings out a truth," said Drew Kersten, director of the Kempt team.

Kempt assistant director John Gebretatose agreed that it's all about capturing those truths. "It's people playing with confidence … making comment on real-life things. Like women's shoulder pads in the '80s and how they had to look like football players just to get through life. For me, that's what makes it successful: a through-line or a narrative commenting on society."

One of the reasons improv remains a hard sell for some audiences is that it's the ultimate "had to be there" entertainment. It's difficult to explain how the shoulder pad observation might snowball into a scene about Jennifer Aniston devouring the life force of her young fans, but for those watching the performers feed off one another's energy and make connections, the evolution is electrifying.

Those hazy connections are very much by design, Kersten said. "If the opening is about Diet Coke, you don't want to see three scenes about Diet Coke. You want them spread out as far as possible, so when they start to come back together it brings a bit more of that magic."

The laughs in a Harold show seldom come from a standard setup/punchline delivery. In fact, one of the first rules laid out in "Truth in Comedy" is "Don't go for the jokes." Instead, the comedy in a long-form show comes largely from watching relatable situations spiral into unexpected directions.

"The least successful Harolds are when we let our 'I know where this needs to go' take over and steer things instead of discovering all the way through," Roy said. "Because if we know where it needs to go, so does the audience."

The form's flexibility is obvious watching the three teams of five performers in the "Harold Turns 50" showcase.

On opening night, the House of Whimsy team produced a trio of focused, slice-of-life vignettes about crumbling relationships, disillusioned carnival workers and spiteful chess players. While the scenes frequently veered into weirdness, they remained grounded in a way that drew laughs of recognition from the crowd.

The Speficicity team, on the other hand, dove deeper into surreality right off the bat with a scene about two buddies literally riding each other's good vibes like a surfboard. That story line soon intertwined with two bird-watchers who misplaced a baby, and a home brewer crafting a hugely popular beer that smelled of cat urine, all of it building into a crescendo of absurdity that had the audience roaring for very different reasons.

As much reverence as the local improv community has for the Harold, the form represents something different in the Twin Cities than it does in improv hotbeds such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where making it onto a high-profile Harold team can be a major career steppingstone. Many performers move to those cities for that reason.

"In Minnesota it's a strong part of the tradition, but at Huge Theater, Harold is only one of the forms that gets done," Kersten said.

While Close did some work with Minnesota comedy godfather Dudley Riggs and his Brave New Workshop, Huge encourages experimentation and focuses more on building strong teams of performers, regardless of form.

"Team first, format second: That's what differentiates us from the coasts," Gebretatose said. "We're better anyway," he added with a laugh.

Ira Brooker is a St. Paul-based freelance writer and editor.

Willard Ikola was born in Eveleth in 1932, when the Great Depression was going full steam, several mining facilities were closing and unemployment on the Iron Range was 70%. Which would tell you that “Ike” and everyone else in that melting pot of northern Minnesota had a considerable appreciation for a quarter, much less a buck.

Ikola was the goalie for three Eveleth state hockey champions (1948-50), an All-America at Michigan, the goalie for the U.S. Olympic silver medalists in 1956 in Cortina, Italy, and in 1958 as an Air Force officer serving in California.

He was making $7,200 a year in that capacity. He received a call from the Twin Cities, with Gophers coach John Mariucci and jack-of-all-sports Sid Hartman on the phone, informing Ikola the hockey coaching job at Edina High School suddenly had opened.

“Edina could have been a St. Paul suburb for all I knew,” Ikola said years later. “I graduated from Eveleth and left for Michigan in 1950. I had never heard of Edina.

“Ken Yackel was coaching there in ‘58. The Boston Bruins offered him a contract. It was October. Edina needed a coach right away, and I could get out of the service immediately.”

Not so fast, though, Maroosh and Sid. That number — $7,200 — carried considerable importance with this now 26-year-old Iron Ranger.

“Edina was paying $5,400,” Ikola said. “There was an Air Force Reserve Unit in the Twin Cities. I could make another $1,800 in the Reserves. That made me even financially, so I took the job.”

Of course, one thing Ike didn’t take into account in these finances was the need to invest in a hat.

“I had never coached, but Cliff Thompson, my coach at Eveleth, wore a hat,” Ikola said. “If I was going to coach, I needed a hat. I bought this one for $5.”

This conversation with Ikola was taking place around Christmas in 1990, with a couple of months remaining in what he had announced would be his final season as the coach of Edina’s Hornets.

That hat lasted 15 seasons, Ikola put it on a closet shelf, bought a new one, but it disappeared after a few years. “I’ve always accused Al Godfrey, the old coach from Hopkins, of stealing the hat,” Ikola said.

Godfrey died in Florida in 2010, so I couldn’t do a decades-later check on this accusation, but if anyone ever had a reason to swipe an Edina hockey coach’s chapeau, it would be a Hopkins coach.

Ikola died late Monday night at 92. He won eight state high school hockey titles and made 19 state appearances in 33 seasons at Edina.

His Eveleth pal and fellow hockey star, John Mayasich, was vacationing with friends in the Florida area when he heard the news.

Ikola and Mayasich played together for the Eveleth dynasty, played against one another when it was the Wolverines vs. the Gophers, and they were teammates on that ‘56 Olympic team.

Ikola always has been “Ikey” to Mayasich in our conversations, and that was the case Tuesday.

“People say ‘goalie and coach’ when they bring up Ikey, but to me he’s one of the greatest athletes to come off the Iron Range,” Mayasich said. “He was short, weighed about 120 pounds when he started in high school, but he was a catcher — of course — in baseball … quick, active, smart.

“We played three years of football together, and he was shifty as could be. And then they built this beautiful recreation hall in Eveleth. We’d play Ping Pong in there for hours. Might take that long to beat Ikey.”

Ikola’s father had a car. The Mayasichs, 12 kids, did not have a car.

“We didn’t have a wagon you could pull,” John said. “But Ikey’s father, he would drive us all around the Range to play ball games in the summer.”

Ikola was 58 when he coached his last game with the Hornets. He had reached his full pension as a teacher, sweated out too many victories, lost just enough heartbreakers, to want to enjoy life with Laurie, the bride he met as students at the University of Michigan, and family.

And he offered another reason in December 1990 for quitting comparatively early:

The Hat.

“My hat is reddish, greenish, brownish, checkered, dirty and worn out,” Ikola said. “It’s so cruddy ... it’s falling apart. I’d have to buy a new hat if I kept coaching.”

Ikola’s hockey career started at age 8. Eveleth had two indoor rinks.

“There were 10 kids to a team,” Ikola said. “There was a scorekeeper and referee, but no coach. You played for the street you lived on. John Matchefts and Mayasich were Summit Street. I played for Jackson Street.

“Matchefts was a year older than me, Mayasich a year younger. Great, great players.

“We were unbeaten and won the state the last three years I played. The next year, 1951, Eveleth was unbeaten again. Mayasich never lost in his four years in high school.”

Matchefts and Ikola went to Michigan because it offered scholarships. As Gophers coach, John Mariucci pleaded for a scholarship for Mayasich, and the U relented — a football scholarship to play hockey.

So, it was Eveleth greatness vs. Eveleth greatness when the Gophers met Michigan.

“We had lots of Canadians at Michigan,” Ikola said. “We’d come into Williams Arena, the place would be jammed and Gophers fans always brought a sign for us that read, ‘God Save the Queen.’ ”

For Ikola it became: “God Save The Hat.”

Thirty-three years. A Ranger from Ike’s time would expect no less wear for an entire $5 bill.