SHOWS! SHOWS! SHOWS!

It began last night, ladies and dumbs. The 2011 MN Fringe snowball was gently pushed down the hill with the new BLB-style lottery. And because it’s never too early to get your Fringe on, here are the shows we’re already most looking forward to (based on your mom).

10. 10 Foot 5 Productions presents “Buckets and Tap Shoes” — Yeah, you’ve seen them before, but that was outside after a Twins game and you were drunk. They’ll seem less homeless this time.

9. OT Pro-Ductions presents “Robot Lincoln: The Revengeance (The Musical)” — At first, we were like “a robot Abraham Lincoln - yawn”. But then we saw that it was a musical and we were like “yeah…okay”.

8. Zombie High School presents “Arrested Development the Musical” — Their zombie high school show surprised and impressed us. Hopefully, we can catch this one before they get sued to infinity.

7. Isabel Nelson presents “Astronauts Ho! (A love story)” — Last year’s Fringie winner for Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production. As you can see from the previous sentence, the show was outstanding.

6. Joking Envelope presents “Brain Man vs. Jerk Island” — Joseph Scrimshaw finally got a slot in the Fringe. It’s been, what, 200 and some days? I was beginning to think something was up.

5. The Importance of Being Fotis — The only person funnier when they’re reading is Michele Bachmann.

4. Comedy Suitcase presents “The Smothers Brothers Grimm, Death and Fairy Tales, but Mostly Death” — The dudes that crafted the best-selling show from a couple years ago are back. Plus, Comedy Suitcase is such a crazy name. Wheeeeeee!

3. Tom Reed presents “TBD Awesomeness” — A one-man musical version of ________ in under 60 minutes! My best guess: “Dancing with the Star Wars”.

2. Four Humors Theater presents “You Only Live Forever Once” — Four Humors makes Fringe worth fringing. It’s true. Google it.

1. Ferrari McSpeedy Theatrical Productions presents “Once Upon a Time in the Suburbs” — “But FringeFamous, these guys are soooo physically unattractive - I can barely stand to look at one of them, let alone two”. I know, I know…but they’re funny. Just trust it.

The full list of beautiful winners and stupid whiny losers is here. Before you get your hopes up, Theat of the Cunch is dead last on the small-venue wait list. DAMN YOU, PING PONG BALLS!!!