Joel Axler, co-founder of Yuk Yuk's, says "Benmergui and I were the only people to survive the first season" of the ill-fated talk show Friday Night! With Ralph Benmergui. I'm a merciful person, so I'll leave that alone.

Fortunately, coordinating Ralph Benmergui's comedy segments for both seasons of the show left Axler relatively unscarred - he's since coordinated the talent for Funny Girls on wtn - and now Axler is cooking up a number of comedic tv projects with an eye on the Baton-controlled specialty channel The Comedy Network.

Bemoaning Canada's apparent "obsession with drama," Axler's interests turn more towards projects which are "easy to do, of relatively low cost and utilize a vibrant pool of Canadian comedy talent." And when he says low cost, he means it. Each half-hour episode of the three projects he's working on rings in at under $15,000.

The first of that trio - Lasting Impressions - is currently being developed with Catalyst from an idea Axler struck upon about eight years ago. Picture a show featuring dueling professional impressionists, peppered with impressions by viewers via home video, complete with a prize for the winner.

Axler's other two brainchildren - That's Funny! and The Perfect Match - are still without production partners, and Axler is definitely looking. While he envisions That's Funny as a compilation show comprised of the best standup in the country, the idea for The Perfect Match is unique.

"I see a rough, hand-held kind of thing - kind of like Cops - where we track people on first blind dates, people who met through personal ads. Occasionally we could backtrack to couples we've seen and update what happened."

Axler says there's been some positive reaction to the idea in the u.s., though he's unsure whether Canadian broadcasters will be as receptive: "They might be a little afraid of the concept."

Meanwhile, Axler has tons of irons in the comedy fire. He's struck a deal with Maverick Manufacturing of Goderich, Ont. to produce coin-operated cd joke machines (for airports, clubs, restaurants, wherever) and he's looking to strike up a deal to produce a "virtual comedy club" on cd-rom.

-Portrait of the artist as a young capitalist

"In this day and age, almost everyone in the free world has thought about writing a movie," he says. But not everyone has the fast-forward mouth and brazen enterprise of Spenser Rice. He and partner Ken Hotz are putting the finishing touches on The Pitch, a "documentary comedy" about adventures they had while flogging their mob comedy The Dawn.

After hitting what Rice calls "the Hollywood wall" - getting blown off, hung up on, and tossed in the round folder - Hotz decided their exploits would be hilarious film fodder after being thwarted once again in trying to reach Al Pacino's agent.

So, with 700 pounds of equipment in tow, they got down to business. They hit the Toronto International Film Festival and got their script into the hands of Mr. Pacino himself (a "crazy stroke of luck"). They got kicked out of a press conference for pitching Norman Jewison while he was talking up Bogus. They pitched (harassed?) Eric Stoltz on his way into a Hollywood premiere. They ran into Neil Simon on the street as they cruised l.a. and bickered in their van. All told, there were 15 celebrity appearances including Matt Dillon and Roger Ebert.

"It's about the tension and stress, and its affect on our partnership," says Rice. "And although we're both filmmakers, and we realize that the presence of a camera alters reality somewhat, I think it's still a very honest representation of what it's all about."

Shot in l.a. and Toronto over a two-and-half-month period for about $200,000 (raised privately with the help of producer Raymond Massey), The Pitch actually took precedence over developing The Dawn once things got rolling. "It's a movie for industry people," says Rice. "Someone might see it and think we're talented, so we're holding off selling the script until The Pitch is released."

Getting a release for the film is the next step, and nothing's signed yet. Rice says although the duo (plus Hotz's girlfriend, Kate Brooks) played writers, directors, subjects, researchers, and more, there's a void of knowledge on how best to proceed distribution-wise. However, they've been hitting up Peter Sussman in Atlantis' l.a. office for advice.

Lessons learned? Both Rice and Hotz became only more convinced that they're "American-style" filmmakers (not to mention Barnum & Bailey-type salesmen) and that, expectations for The Pitch aside, they want to make movies for a mainstream audience. "What I like about the American system," says Rice, "is that it's a profit-motivated system."

And in case you're interested, The Dawn (which was written by Hotz and Rice when they had stars in their eyes, namely Pacino and DeNiro) is about a Mafia don who goes under the knife for a routine hernia operation and ends up with a sex change. I'm thinking Jim Carrey

-Cavan and McDonald are twitchin'

With Twitch City underway in Toronto, Susan Cavan says she and Bruce McDonald are already at work developing other feature and tv collaborations. No particulars yet, but soon.

Twitch City, created by and starring Don McKellar (Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould) and produced in association with the cbc, is the offspring of Twitch City Enterprises, a joint company between Cavan's Accent Entertainment and McDonald's Shadow Shows.

The six-part, half-hour $2 million series is set in Toronto's Kensington Market and stars McKellar as Curtis, a tv-lovin', cat-hatin' tightwad who never goes outside. Armand Leo is producing and McDonald is directing a cast which includes Molly Parker (Kissed), Daniel MacIvor (House), Bruce McCulloch (Kids in the Hall) and Callum Keith Rennie (Hard Core Logo). There's also - get this - a guest appearance from Joyce DeWitt (Janet from Three's Company, for those not in the know).