Edmond Bulldogs: MTV Sends Comedy Troupe Into Overdrive

Mitch Baker and David Bewley, two mad geniuses known collectively as the Edmond Bulldogs, are back in town to take the Hideout to outer space. The former Austinites, who do for sketch comedy what Aldous Huxley did for doors, have been fomenting their dementia-scented brand of humor and polishing their surrealist stagin' boots in L.A. for the past year or so. Now they're going to be featured on MTVOverdrive.com's the Stew, and this advent has driven them back to the River City to perform a brand-new show for two nights only, by way of whipping local supporters into a frenzy that actual bulldogs reach only when their mouths are dripping foam and there's a large body of water nearby. Or when they're in outer space, and their blood's literally boiling due to the pressure differential of – have you seen these Bulldogs?

Baker and Bewley, the lone sketch duo bobbing amid a sea of national improv artists, were the surprise hit of Austin's recent Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. Surprise, did we say? Well, not exactly: The preshow buzz had been quite loud, like having a large, drunk Apis mellifera trapped inside the middle ear canal, but the SRO audience was surprised at how even the word-of-mouth hype was overshadowed by the Edmond Bulldogs' actual performance.

How to describe what they do, aside from suggesting that if the ghost of Salvador Dali possessed the younger Jim Carrey and made him tend bar in the basement of David Lynch's brain, then a Bulldog-equivalent level of weirdness might be achieved? Yes, but it probably still wouldn't be as funny.

The 'Dogs will be abetted in their fresh shenanigans this weekend by Shannon McCormick and Jeremy "Bearded" Lamb and will intermittently share the stage with improv specialists Available Cupholders. To further spice the live show's strange and kinetic meat, local filmmaker Rene Pinnell will be screening clips from Meet the Bulldogs, the MTV-pilot-turned-Overdrive-series. Recommended? You bet.