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Dan Huen

With a Shaw TV gig in hand, The Week Thus Far hopes to become the new source for local witticism.
   
"Right now it’s a website (www.weekthusfar.com)," says Dan Huen, co-executive producer of The Week Thus Far. "It’s a gathering of satirical news-style stories brought to you by local comics. We’re starting to upload more video segments and eventually we’ll be airing a half-hour TV show featuring some segments, as well as some local guests and bands."
   
Huen, a regular on the local standup and improv scene since February 2009, and his friend Craig J. Ward, who works in master control at Shaw, pitched the idea to the community channel in October. The show, which should start in January or February, will be presented in a style similar to American late-night talk shows (a monologue, a guest and a band).
   
"They’ll see Winnipeg comedy," says Huen, who co-hosted The Gray Area of Comedy (www.grayareaofcomedy.com) on UMFM with local comic Tim Gray. "That’s what we’re trying to get out, without shoving it in your face. Saying ‘Support Winnipeg comedy!’ sounds like ‘Don’t do drugs kids!’ — no one fucking cares. Without acknowledging it, people can figure out themselves that there is a shitload of shows to see and these are the people doing them."
   
Promoting the ’Peg’s comedy scene isn’t Huen’s only goal.
   
"In this town it’s tough to make a living off comedy, so you have to prep yourself to go to another place. You have to hit all the mediums, that’s why we’re trying to do radio, online, blogging, sketch writing, satirical news; TV is just the next logical step. We’ve done video online but TV is a different thing, and we get to use the studio and the Shaw brand. It’s the next step to learning how to do comedy."
   
Yes, you can learn comedy — but mostly it’s sheer talent or perhaps absolute accident. For an example of the latter, take the show’s acronym.
   
"We were joking around that CJOB 68 has Today So Far, so we’ll call our show The Week Thus Far, but we were such idiots that someone had to point out that it’s WTF. The website was already just weekthusfar.com (no ‘the’) so it worked perfect. I chalk it up to genius."
   
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