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Rent-A-Nerd
A Downers Grove comedy company rents out party dorks.
Ah, the golden days of the late ’90s—when life was simple and families whiled away their evenings in front of the tube, watching Steve Urkel chicken-strut his way into their hearts as he crooned his signature catchphrase, “Did I do that?” Thanks to the Downers Grove–based company Rent-A-Nerd, you can bring all of that social ineptitude directly to your next party…for a fee, of course. Offering entertainment custom-tailored to private parties and corporate events, Rent-A-Nerd’s stable of four dork-actors creates harmlessly awkward scenarios targeted toward the party VIP.
“The possibilities of what we can do are endless,” says Rent-A-Nerd CEO Mike MacDonald, 48, who started the company on a whim in 1986 after getting laid off from a computer-programming gig at Baxter Laboratories. (He later played his geek self at a Baxter corporate event.) “If, for example, we’re doing a retirement party and we know that the guy retiring goes fishing to get away from everyone, we might send a nerd in as his long-lost son to say things like, ‘Oh, we can go fishing and just talk and talk and talk.’ The fun part is watching this person imagine they’re going to have to interact with this nerd on a permanent basis.”
Creating 15- to 40-minute performances that cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars depending on the number of nerds involved, performance length and travel expenses, Rent-A-Nerd’s plaid-sporting actors wield a joke arsenal ranging from light jabs at the party’s person of honor to classic shirt-in-the-fly gags.
“One thing I like to do is bring one of those clickers that people use to count people coming into bars,” says Chicago native MacDonald, better known by his nerd persona, Hornby K. Fletcher. “I pull it out every now and then and click it but don’t say anything. When people ask what I’m doing, I tell them Hornby has an intestinal problem and his doctor wants him to count his farts. For the rest of the night, people across the room are dying laughing when they see you silently pull out the clicker in the middle of conversation.”
As in the real world, life isn’t always easy for a fart-counting, pocket-protector-wearing dweeb. Since Rent-A-Nerd actors interact with their audience more intimately than most comedians, the chances of offending someone are greater. “I did a Christmas show for some bus drivers, and the guy who hired me fed me false accusations about the audience,” says John Kingsbury, a Rent-A-Nerd dork who performs under the name Darb Druff (brother of Dan Druff). “I was talking about relationships between people that weren’t having relationships. As I’m doing the show, people are cussing and yelling at me. For about five minutes I thought, I might get hurt here.”
In fact, Kingsbury has gotten hurt on the job: During one performance, an angered party guest punched him in the crotch. Yet Kingsbury’s quick to add that, in his five years with the company, he’s had only two or three negative experiences like that. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he says, the presence of a dork who gently pokes fun at guests and at himself breaks the ice at social gatherings and brings the partygoers closer together rather than collectively pissing them off.
“When I’m Hornby, I’m just this nerdy, innocent guy, and people connect with that,” MacDonald says. “I was working an outdoor event once and there was a tent of bikers next door, so I walked up to this guy that looked like Dolph Lundgren and handed him a pair of taped glasses. He put his arm around me and said, ‘I can’t believe I’m not killing you right now.’ It was kind of sweet.”
“Sweet” is exactly what Rent-A-Nerd is going for. While the company specializes in comedy, MacDonald insists its actual mission is connecting people. “It’s a reversal of power,” he says. “We become the butt of the joke to give everyone a laugh.”
Rent-A-Nerd dorks can be hired at rent-a-nerd.com or by calling 630-852-8400.
