ENTERTAINMENT

Holy cow! 'Manitowoc Minute's' Charlie Berens funny as heck at sold-out Weidner show

Kendra Meinert
Green Bay Press-Gazette
Comedian Charlie Berens poses with the woman who paid $300 for a birdhouse he auctioned off during his sold-out show in March 2018 at the Weidner Center. The money was donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

It takes one to know one, and oh my gosh, does Charlie Berens know us — from our mild aversion to all things Illinois to our love of a cold beer to our appreciation for anybody who can point us to the nearest bubbler.

The Elm Grove-born comedian gets what it is to be a Wisconsinite, because he’s one, too. 

You don’t stand onstage at the Weidner Center in a camouflage duck hunting jacket that you tell the audience you stole from your dad unless you actually went down in the fruit cellar and swiped it. And just try to get a sold-out crowd of 2,000 on its feet to sing along to “This Land Is Your Land” — from “Green Bay’s Lambeau to da Mars Cheese Castle” — if your license plate doesn’t say “America’s Dairyland,” too.

More about Wisconsin plates in a minute, but speaking of a minute ...

Berens opened his show Tuesday night in character as the host of the viral comedy series “The Manitowoc Minute,” in which he puts a decidedly Wisconsin spin and over-the-top Midwest accent on local and national headlines, shares kitschy finds for sale on his Craigslist Kicker and always signs off with “Go Packers and (bleep) da Bears.” (You just knew a story with the headline “Green Bay rated drunkest city in America” would make the cut at his Weidner stop.) The fast-paced minute-ish segment each Monday racks up hundreds of thousands of internet streams, but what exactly does Berens do for 50 minutes during his live show?

Well, real quick once, here's a rundown of a few favorite moments from his Weidner debut, a savvy booking by the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Good Times Programming student group that drew well beyond college-age fans, caused a good old-fashioned Nicolet Drive traffic backup, found three of Berens' siblings working the merch booth and included a sharp 15-minute opening set from 2007 UWGB alum John Egan.

RELATED:Charlie Berens talks family, his Wisconsin roots and comedy

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» He knows how to keep ’er movin.’ He didn’t limit himself to the stage, where his simple setup included a modest anchor desk with a laptop, video screen, guitar, deer call and his “Culver’s drive-thru mic.” He darted up to the mezzanine to call for a round of applause for military members and their families, chatted up a superfan wearing a jumbo brats-and-cheese necklace and plunked down in a seat next to fans during a really funny “Titanic” segment. When it was time to jump back onstage, he did it, of course, Lambeau Leap style.

» If the whole “Manitowoc Minute” thing doesn’t work out, there’s always auctioneering. Straight from his Craigslist Kicker segment, a two-hole birdhouse made from a Wisconsin license plate he paid $20 for was auctioned off to the audience, with proceeds going to the Wounded Warrior Project. Bidding quickly reached $130.

“I don’t know what you guys are drinking, but you’re drinking it fast,” he said. 

When the top bid hit $300, Berens ran down the aisle to hug the woman. 

“I love you,” she told him in such an earnest way you could hear the crowd melt with her. “I’m not kidding. I have a credit card and everything.” 

» Without “H” there is no “holy heck!”  He honed in on uniquely Wisconsin words like bubbler (a water fountain elsewhere), FIB, (a bleeping Illinois bleep), FIBTAB (bleeping Illinois bleep towing a boat) and unthaw (as in, “Pull the pizza out of the freezer and unthaw it”). Vocabulary lessons don’t come more fun.

He strapped on the guitar for a little ditty about the letter “H,” which often gets left out in Wisconsin (see “up nort,” “Fort of July” and “one, two, tree”). “Hey der H, without you I wouldn’t be Charlie, I’d be Carlie,” he sang, blowing a kiss to a big image of the letter on the screen behind him.

Midway through his 50-minute show at the Weidner Center, Charlie Berens ditched the camo hunting jacket and over-the-top accent from his "Manitowoc Minute" segments and was "the other Charlie."

» He brought along special guest “the other Charlie.” About 30 minutes in, he ditched the exaggerated accent and the camo jacket, rolled up his sleeves and had “Manitowoc Minute” Charlie introduce “the other Charlie.” He’s the stand-up comedian who grew up one of 12 kids (“I was mass produced”), was raised Catholic (“I was born Catholic, raised guilty”) and wanted to be the next Brian Williams when he studied broadcast journalism in college, where one of his professors told him he needed to hire a voice coach to help him get rid of his accent. “One hundred dollars an hour to sound like a FIB,” he said. 

» You’ll never look at “Titanic” the same way again. In one of the funniest bits of the night, he rolled his “If Jack Dawson Was Really From Wisconsin” video, in which the character Leonardo Dicaprio plays in the blockbuster, scripted as being from Chippewa Falls, actually talks like a Wisconsinite in one scene, carrying on about ice fishing and telling Kate Winslet’s privileged and worldly Rose she seems like an Illinois girl.

Berens recruited a male audience member to play Rose as the two hilariously acted out the scene at movie’s end. Both the premise and the punchline too good to spoil here.

Even at his holy cow!-holy cats!-holy moly!-holy heck! most over-the-top, Berens never veered into that corny and cliched Cheesehead territory that gives the rest of the country plenty of fodder for punchlines.

With Berens, it feels more like having fun than making fun. That’s a credit to his spot-on observations of his fellow Wisconsinites and his infectious enthusiasm for his home state. It makes him both genuine and genuinely likable.

How else could you pull off a show closer in which you send your fans home with both a sincere "(bleep) da Bears" and a "drive safe" in the same breath.