by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Hey, gang, I want you to meet two very special fellas. The big one's called Big Hamm, the little one's Little Hamm and together they're Canned Hamm, Vancouver's most cherished entainers.

That's right, "entainers." They entain, which is their streamlined, millennial vision of entertainment. Funny thing is, this entainment bears a remarkable similarity to what constituted fun prior to the arrival of television.

"We don't want to sound like reactionaries," states the enthusiastic Little Hamm, "but there's a thing called tradition, a rich history. To me, it's discovering new things, or things that are new to me anyway. Someone says, ‘I got you a new shirt,' and it's maybe 30 years old, but it's new to me!"

"We performed at my late grandfather's 90th birthday party," adds Big Hamm to illustrate, "with all these old English people and whatnot. They could all get up and sing a song or 10, and they all knew the songs and sang along! They knew how to drink, too. They were like, ‘Oh, you young kids, you're gonna do your crazy, wacky rock 'n' roll thing,' but we fit in perfectly! We were doing our song-and-dance routine, and they all had their own. These weren't professional entertainers, it's just that everyone from that era could do that."

At its core, the Canned Hamm experience is just that, a vigorous and life-affirming song-and-dance routine. Carefully choreographed little two-steps accompany their Casio-charged ditties about shortening bread, toupees, sex (or lack of access to sex), karaoke (a formative influence on the pair) and father-and-son businesses. In fact, the video for "Father & Son," a tune taken from their powerhouse debut CD Karazma!, is currently the second most requested video on the MusiquePlus program Dollaraclip. That's why the poutine nation's music station is flying in the Hamms, their puppets (oh, yes - puppets!) and their pal Lil' Baby Jesus (apparently, the son of God is a pudgy white guy with glasses). They're going to host the show next week, and they don't even speak French! What a crazy, mixed-up situation!

Right in the pocket

But then, crazy, mixed-up situations are par for the course for Canned Hamm. Take their recent tour of Australia, in the company of America's favourite funnyman Neil Hamburger and Dr. Suavo, a magician/DJ in a wrestling mask.

"It's a tipsy-topsy-turvy land," says a breathlessly eager Hamm the smaller. "You know how you think kangaroos have pockets? You ask, oh, is it a zipper pocket or a button pocket? It's a sphincter! I licked my finger and put it in! It's a sphincter! And every person there has one! It's like a swirling vortex, and it doesn't swirl like vortices swirl here!

"It swirls the other way," adds Hamm the larger, "backwards!"

El Grande Hamm offers perhaps a deeper insight into the Antipodean psyche, one that might explain why the shrimp-on-the-barbie bunch were so smitten with the ways of Canned Hamm.

"You know how here, we all grew up with Mr. Dressup and the Friendly Giant, these sweet characters? Their Mr. Dressup is this guy named Auntie Jack, who has a moustache, pigtails and a woman's dress - and one golden boxing glove that he takes his opponents out with."

One bunch of wonderful people that Canned Hamm connected with in Australia was the Mu Mesons, a nice couple who archive B movies by the thousands, coordinate a large musical band of local schizophrenics and put on a monthly shindig called Sounds of Seduction. It was there that Canned Hamm, no strangers to the art of seduction, made their Sydney debut.

"They'd spin discs and have pretty girls go-go dancing," says the greater of two Hamms. "But the pretty girls would meet handsome young men and take off, so they were slowly replaced with middle-aged men with schizophrenia as their go-go dancers. But they make fantastic dancers! One fellow who danced during our set, George, was a wonderful fellow, a great painter and a fabulous go-go dancer!"

"And a snappy dresser," El Poco Hamm pipes in, "very into fabric!"

A homage to the Hamm

Now, snappy dressing is something that Canned Hamm know a thing or two about. Witness the vibrant and exciting matching outfits they dare to wear, whether on stage, in front of the camera or just shopping for knick-knacks. Their flare for hot couture is just one of the many extra dimensions that Canned Hamm have brought to their act. The "fourth wall" of performance means about as much to these devil-may-care renegades as the no-white-after-Labour-Day rule that fashion fascists love to impose on free spirits. Boundaries between audience and performer, between sweaty fat guy and squirming womenfolk, between laughter and pathos - all are meant to be crossed as a beautiful unicorn might leap over a rosebush.

The climax of a Canned Hamm gig, if there can be a climax to a non-stop avalanche of cheer, charm and talent, is undoubtedly the burlesque segment which sees the pair sensuously disrobe - right down to their boxer shorts! And if that's not enough to get the ladies hot 'n' bothered, they're soon out among the crowd, getting "up close and personal."

There's a message to their magic: hey, folks, get comfortable with yourselves, with your bodies and desires - and with Canned Hamm's! Regarded in this manner, the Canned Hamm experience can be seen as healthy, productive, even therapeutic! (Given Little Hamm's frequent allusions to benders, meds and "dark times," he's had his share of back-to-wellness experiences, so you can trust him on this stuff!)

But don't ask me, take it from the likes of rock 'n' roll rascal Bobby Conn, alt.country damsel Carolyn Mark or Aussie skate-punx Frenzal Rhomb, all of whom contribute to the forthcoming Karazma! Reimagined tribute disc (something to tide you over until the next Canned Hamm album proper, Balloon Fantasy, hits the racks in the fall).

"It's amazing that in the short two or three years we've been around," notes Hamm XL, "we've had such a profound effect on other artists that it didn't take much coercing to convince them to pay homage to us."

"What each has used as a touchstone is how we've touched their lives," continues Miniature Hamm, "and proceeded from there."

And touching people's lives - and bodies! - is what Canned Hamm is all about.

So cool it's uncool

Just as a world of remarkable talent pays tribute to the inspirational pair, so do they tip their white golf caps (their nod to admired humourist Dom DeLuise in The Cannonball Run!) to the artists that inspired them.

Their latest homage is a track on a CD celebrating the Screamers - "a legendary L.A. punk band with two keyboards and drums that never actually recorded an album," says Mega-Hamm. The cover they covered is a cover that the Screamers also covered, "The Beat Goes On" by Sonny & Cher.

"The great thing is," says Mini-Hamm, "if we get asked to be on a Sonny & Cher tribute album, the track's already done!"

"We like to keep our options open," adds the largest of all Hamms, "so our version encompasses the original, the Screamers' version and also the Vanilla Fudge version as well. They had an album called The Beat Goes On, in fact."

"You get to find out all about voices in time and the entire history of music on that one Vanilla Fudge album," announces the excitable Kleine Hamm, and he would know! While Big Hamm previously "brought the heavy" with the band Slow, Little Hamm's been poking around the tidal pools of popular culture, gathering wisdom that gave life to the zine years of his career. Not only does he write a column for Van's Terminal City newsweekly under the nom-de-ploom Robert Dayton, he once edited a zine called Drippy Gazette. "That's where the concept of entainment first came into play. I would write about the murals of Vancouver, TV commercials, song-poems, all sorts of stuff. My mom would review TV movies."

It's these years of careful research and documentation that have allowed Canned Hamm to formulate the finest in lo-fi, populist amusement. But sadly, not everyone is brave enough to drop their character armour and open their hearts to the ways of the Hamm. For instance, after the pair's debut appearance in Montreal last year, some local bon vivants took them out on the town. Imagine their surprise when the doorman at a certain unnamed St-Laurent nightclub refused them entry because they weren't, quote-unquote, cool enough.

"But if you had seen that doorman…" seethes the perturbed Compact Hamm. "Look, let's move past that and just say, what on Earth is cool and why does it matter? It's a bullshit term! I hate to curse, I really do, but I can't think of any other word than bullshit! Come on, it's a commodity!"

Taking a moment to compose himself, Little Hamm whispers, "I think that doorman was not comfortable with himself."

With the World Provider at la Sala Rossa on Thursday, April 24, 9pm, $10. Canned Hamm host Dollaraclip on MusiquePlus on Saturday, April 26, 9:30pm