With a billing in 2009 as big as King Kong - the 8th Wonder of World - the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival is the brainchild of Winnipeg comedian Al Rae. A Winnipeg stand-up comic and writer, Al Rae won the Just for Laughs National Homegrown Comic Competition in 2000. A writer on the CBC comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, Al also contributed to the sitcoms Blackfly and Big Sound (Global). He hosted two comedy information shows for CBC Radio: the finance-themed That’s Capital; and the election satire Spin Off. His eight-part comedy drama series Monsoon House with Russell Peters aired on CBC Radio in 2006. Al launched the Winnipeg Comedy Festival in 2002, with longtime friend and collaborator, CBC Radio’s Tom Anniko. Now in its eighth year, the festival has come to include year-round outreach programs, rural tours, workshops and television broadcasts that attract more than two million viewers annually. One of several stops on CBC Television’s Canadian comedy circuit, the Winnipeg festival proudly boasts the highest ratings for CBC’s comedy festival series. In 2009, the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival partnered with Frantic Films to produce five television broadcasts of the festival galas. These one-hour specials were shot live-to-tape, recording themed humour, unscripted and spontaneous audience reaction, and the magic of the moment only television can capture. The five one-hour specials present comedy performances along the following themes: - Savings & Groans - The Holiday Show - Queer As Jokes - The Deadly Seven - Cradle To Grave