Celebrity Poker Showdown: Who Woulda Thought it Would be so Funny?

Celebrity Poker Showdown: Who Woulda Thought it Would be so Funny? by Roxanne McDonald

Celebrity Poker Showdown, Tournament 8, Game 3, is no exception to the fact that poker is one of the few equalizers between common folk and celebrities.

The players are fun and funny. There’s Brett Butler (Grace Under Fire star, Last Comic Standing judge, My Name is Earl’s mother-in-law), Doug E. Doug (Cool Runnings and Cosby, for starters), Fred Savage (The Wonder Years star, Crumbs co-star), Ida Siconolfi (winner of online poker tournament at Bravo.com), and Jennifer Tilly (numerous films such as Bound, as well as Family Guy character voice).

When you watch the show, you might at first hedge when the players are introduced and you find all five are straight actors or performers and think there will be no humor or, at the least, levity. Of course, Brett Butler is one of the funniest, most sarcastic comediennes in the biz, but besides being fairly docile tonight, she gets sent to the loser’s lounge first, with Doug E. Doug (making the phenom of two players getting booted in one hand only the fourth occurrence ever on the show).

But of all the likely entertaining players, Jennifer Tilly makes this episode worthwhile:

wearing a hot peachy orange lace dress that is cut down to the table her boobs rest on, she consistently refers to her “boobs popping out” and babbles incessantly. Third to get booted, though, she is also praised by Phil, who says he really likes the way she played.

It’s down to Ida and Fred, both fairly solemn tonight. Dave Foley ad libs, his usual injecting his usual barbs that make the show a blast to watch. (Kevin Pollack is the alternate host, sometimes confused with Kevin Spacey, but a successful stand-up and filmic comic who also brings cheeky fun to Celebrity Poker Showdown.)

Despite the sobriety of the game now between Ida and Fred, each does the all-in move a few times, both have decent poker faces with hard to find tells, and both make the heads up phase of the game fairly exciting. The crowd helps, as the bachelor party and others are particularly rowdy tonight. In one hand, whereby Ida has suited Queen and two and Fred has suited King and six, Fred gets excited enough to leap up from the table and go into the audience with the bachelor boys. He wins the hand, the guys lift and squeeze-hug him, and poker expert host Phil Hellmuth gets excited for him, too.

The joy subsides when the “luck” switches sides: with Ida in the chip lead, Fred goes all in, again stands—as most all-in moments call for—and Ida Siconolfi. She joins other tourney winners Jason Alexander, from Game 1, and Michael Ian Black, from Game 2, in the circle of players who will go for the grand championship prize of a half a million dollars (which goes to the winner’s charity of choice).

So again, any Celebrity Poker Showdown game you watch will likely bring some degree of entertainment!

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