The punchline. The setup to any joke is only as effective as the punchline that follows and in the case of David Yarovesky’s hilarious short “A Funny Thing Happened at Quick Mart” the punchline is a classic.
Jay (Joey Kern) is doing some routine shopping at a conveyance store when he spies the attractive Jennifer (Rachel Nichols). After an awkward yet good natured hello Jay decides he needs to follow up and talk to Jennifer again before she leaves the store. Despite his inner thoughts pleading with him not to screw this up every subsequent word out of Jay’s nervous mouth seems crazier and crazier. In an attempt to salvage any attempt at a relationship he follows her outside and well…you just have to watch.
The concept of “boy meets girl and can’t say anything right” is a simple one but is expertly handled by everyone involved. Joey Kern who most people will recognize from either one of the stoners in “Super Troopers” or the jerk friend in “Cabin Fever” has a true sense for comic pacing and his hideously inappropriate mannerisms and comments have just the right tone, funny but never too over the top. Rachel Nichols as Jennifer plays off Kern’s increasingly weird suitor well, at first interested in the cute guy and then slowly creeped out. Yarovesky is a talent to watch, he’s crafted as entertaining and funny a ten minute film as they come and in a world of cliched, worn out humor, that is saying something.
