Mark Breslin, born and raised in Toronto, Canada in 1952, is a renowned entrepreneur, producer, comedian, and writer who has left an indelible mark on the Canadian comedy landscape.
He is best known as the co-founder of Yuk Yuk’s, the largest chain of comedy clubs in Canada, which he established in 1976 with his collaborator Joel Axler.
Breslin’s journey in the world of comedy began after he graduated from York University with a B.A. Honours in English Literature in 1974. Shortly after, he became the Director of Theatre and Music for Harbourfront Corporation, an innovative cultural organization in Toronto. This experience laid the groundwork for his future endeavors in the entertainment industry.

In 1976, with an initial investment of just $38, Breslin opened the first Yuk Yuk’s in the basement of a community centre. The club’s success led to its relocation to a permanent venue at 1280 Bay Street in the Yorkville district two years later. Over the next few decades, Yuk Yuk’s expanded its presence to ten clubs across Canada, with pop-up shows in several other locations.
Breslin’s influence extends far beyond the comedy club circuit. He has been a prolific producer of television programs, including “The Late Show with Joan Rivers” for Fox Broadcasting, “Yuk Yuk’s – the TV show” for CBC Television, and “The Yuk Yuk’s Great Canadian Laugh Off” annual TV special for The Comedy Network. He has also made appearances in television series such as “Robocop: The Series” and “Kenny Vs Spenny”.
He also served as the first program director and an on-air personality on the XM Satellite Radio channel Laugh Attack, Canada’s only 24-hour Canadian comedy channel.
Breslin is also an accomplished author, having written four books including “Zen and Now,” “Son of a Meech,” and an autobiographical novel, “Control Freaked”.
Throughout his career, Breslin has been recognized for his contributions to Canadian culture and comedy. In 2014, he was included in the Toronto Star’s list of 180 most influential people to come out of Toronto. In December, 2017, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, in recognition of his significant contributions to the Canadian comedy scene.
Breslin’s impact on Canadian comedy extends to education as well. In 1998, he was chosen as the Artistic Director for the Humber College Comedy Program. He is also a founding board member of the Canadian Comedy Awards and has served as a comedy mentor for the B.C. Festival of the Arts.
Mark Breslin’s journey from a small basement club to becoming Canada’s “King of Comedy” is a marker of his entrepreneurial spirit and creative vision. His legacy continues to shape the landscape of Canadian comedy, inspiring new generations of performers and audiences.
SWAGGER picks Breslin’s brain about his comedy beginnings and so much more….
What inspired you to start Yuk Yuk’s 50 years ago?
Yeah, well, I was desperate to meet girls.
And actually, you know, that sounds like a joke, but some truth to that. Remember, I’m 22 years old, and I wanted an exciting life. People always talk about how you should follow your dream, but for me, it was more running away from my nightmare. And my nightmare was to have a life where I was chained to a desk, doing boring things and meeting boring people. Why I never thought of show business, let alone comedy, as an option, is beyond me, because as soon as I accidentally fell into it, it felt completely right.
And the way I fell into it was, I have a degree in English literature from from from York. And you know, what will that do for you?
All my friends had Arts degrees like that, and they all became PhDs, and they all taught. But that wasn’t something I really wanted to do either. So the idea, of course, was to stay out of law school. But see, what I wanted to do, was to have an exciting life – show business.
As soon as I got into it, I got a job at Harborfront the very first year that it opened. And at that time, they were bringing in all kinds of acts to perform, but they were a bunch of old guys who were programming it. I was always very outspoken, and I was also a person who always went out to everything when I was in high school and university. I was out every night. I was at a movie, I was at a play, I was at a concert, all of this stuff. I was really aware of what was going on in the city. So I would give them ideas on who to book, and they thought they were so good that they invited me to stay and have have a job for the next next while. And I said, sure. So I started programming all kinds of stuff.
This would have been 1975 and 1976.
Among the things I booked was a comedy night, and I just fell in love with the comics. It wasn’t the comedy that you would see, you know, like old jokes in a bar. It was all very personal stuff, very creative, very forward looking, very – can I say? – American, in a lot of ways. There weren’t a lot of references to beavers and Mounties or anything like that. It was a very urban comedy, which to this day in Canada, is hard to find, because if you take a look at most of the things, most shows that are a success, they all have a kind of rural or small town bent. It’s very rare to find a show in Canada that’s a comedy that’s about life in the big city.
So this was creating and finding a new demographic that had not been catered to. The demographic were people who were raised on the 60s values, and sex and drugs and rock and roll, and nothing in the city seemed to do that, especially not the kind of comedy that was happening at the time, besides Second City.
It had been the kind of comedy with these musical reviews. It would be four people, usually two girls, two guys, and they would sing these songs, funny ditties about, you know, the cities, making fun of the TTC (public transit), things like that. And it just seemed all so bland to us.
We thought there was something out there that was extra. Now, I never thought of it as a business. I just thought it was a great way of, again, not going to law school for a while, and it turned into something much, much bigger.
I didn’t think, ‘Oh, here’s a way to, you know, put millions and millions of dollars into the economy.’ And I was using a shoe box to put the money into for the first two years. Didn’t even have a bank account.
You couldn’t have more humble beginnings.
The very first club we did after I left Harborfront, we did one night a week in the basement of a community center on a Wednesday night. No better description for a failure in show business is what I just told you. And yet it succeeded, because we were reaching people that had not been reached before, that felt that there was nothing happening local or national, that was comedic, that appealed to them.

What do you believe was the secret to the clubs’ longevity?
When you have a reputation, that really helps your longevity. And for the longest time, we were pretty much the only game in town, the only game in the country, because nobody else wanted to go where we were going. And we’ve always been a totally uncensored environment. And you know, that means controversy, and not everybody likes controversy. I do. I enjoy controversy. In fact, I think the controversy is evidence of relevance. So this was always part of the fun of it all, with actually people coming and getting upset about it and leaving, and we thought that was the funniest thing of all.
You’ve helped launch the careers of many comedians. Who are some of the most memorable acts you’ve seen?
Of course, the first person to really hit big was Howie Mandel, in the early days. Then Jim Carrey as well. And then, Norm McDonald, is an enormous success, and Russell Peters and the late Mike Bullard, Jeremy Hotz, Harlan Williams, Tom Green, all these people have Yuk Yuk’s starts.
But the person who was the best comic of them all was Mike McDonald.
He was the platinum standard. He never made it big, big, but he was – if you talk to any of the people I just mentioned, who all have their, you know, enormous egos – they would all probably agree with me, and say that he was the best actual comic that ever came out of Yuk Yuk’s.
He was a pro. He was very prolific. A lot of comics, it takes them forever to get to a half an hour’s worth of material. Mike could do that every night. Every single show was different.
How did you scout or nurture new comedy talent?
Well, we always had amateur nights, and all our comics, pretty much were homegrown, and it would take quite a while. People don’t realize how long it takes to actually put an act together. It takes the better part of a couple of years. And over a couple of years, we would have these acts started to develop, to become really, really good. And some left and became famous, and some of them just stayed here. A person like Larry Horowitz, for instance, was every bit as good as anybody who went to the States but just didn’t want to go. He just stayed here and got better and better.
In the beginning, I didn’t have quite enough headliners to stick to my Canadians-only policy. So I would go down to the Comedy Store in LA and I would go down to Catch a Rising Star in New York, and I would look for people who could headline. And remember, in those days, there were probably only four or five clubs in all of North America, so it was not hard to get people to say yes.
I was booking Jerry Seinfeld and Carol Leifer, and eventually Sam Kinison and Andrew Dice Clay, and all kinds of great, great people. Now I don’t have to do that anymore, because we have so many great Canadian comics, but in those days, we we didn’t.
What has become the most challenging aspect of running a national chain of comedy clubs?
Well, you know, it’s like driving a truck as opposed to driving a sports car. When you’re driving a truck, you have to make all 18 wheels go in the same direction, and that’s not an easy thing to do. There’s a lot of people involved. There must be 500 people working for Yuk Yuk’s. There’s about 100 comics that we work with on a daily basis.
What advice would you give to aspiring comedians?
I’m not sure everybody worships at this altar equally, but I certainly worship at the altar of great writing. And I think it’s easier to take a great writer and teach them how to be a good performer than take somebody who’s a good performer and teach them how to be a good writer. You’ve got to pay attention to the writing. And there are tricks to learning how to write, and learning how to write starts with learning how to see, and how to perceive, like any other art. You know, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a painter or you’re a poet or you’re a comedian, you have to learn how to look at the world and notice. It’s all about noticing. It’s a lot about alertness, and alertness is key.

When you were appointed to the Order of Canada, what did that recognition mean to you?
Well, first of all, when I got the call, I thought they said I was being ordered to leave Canada.
Then I realized it was not that at all. It was very gratifying to get that award. I’m the only person involved in stand up comedy whatsoever in the entire country, who has ever received the award. They don’t give it to a lot of performers, and they certainly don’t give it to a lot of comics. But I think everybody connected with SCTV has one, and I think I know Lorne Michaels has one, but there aren’t a lot of other people that have those.
So I was very gratified. I’m also not the easiest person to say, ‘Yeah, let’s give this guy an award too,’ because I frequently say controversial things. I’m not warm and cuddly. I have a very icy kind of comedy that I like to do, and I’m not everybody’s favorite. So I was really, really gratified to to get that award. And the award’s great, because now if I go into a meeting and I’m wearing my pin, I mean, the conversation stops — because, hey, he’s got the Order of Canada.
Yeah, it’s kind of a VIP pass, although I have noticed that when I go to Cineplex, I still have to pay for my popcorn.
What non-comedy club endeavours are you most proud of?
Producing the Joan Rivers show in Los Angeles was a major career high for me. I was running a huge show in Hollywood, and it was very exciting. I got to, you know, meet more stars in those 18 months than I met at any other time in my life. Cumulatively, Joan was a joy to work with. It was the first show that Fox had done since they incorporated as Fox. So I love startups, and I’ve been involved in a lot of startups over over the years, maintaining things, administering things. Man, those things are kind of boring, and sometimes I have to do them. But what’s really exciting is when you sit down with a bunch of people and all you’ve got is an idea, and somehow you move from the idea to the reality. And I love that so, the experience of being in Hollywood, working, running a very good and kind of controversial show with a great and controversial artist at its helm – yeah, that was a high point in my life. I would have been 35 at the time.
Breslin will be giving a talk Feb. 6 in Toronto on the topic of “Uniting Through Laughter.”
This interview has been edited for brevity