Mike grew up mainly in Montreal, but having a traveling salesman as a father meant that Mike also grew up in other cities, including Santa Cruz California where he spent many formative years as an American and a Surfer kid. When Mike lived in Montreal there was no surfing, but there were other sports to be interested in. Mike’s grandfather was a representative for Molson beer so his aquaintances happened to include some of Montreal’s great hockey legends. Mike loved going to see Montreal hockey games at the Forum with his brothers, bringing a stool for the littlest brother Nic, because those days there were rush standing room tickets to be had for kids with a few bucks in their pockets. The games were made all the more vivid to them because their grandfather, a curmudgeonly old Irish man full of tight fisted humor, was a part of the city’s history through this captivating sport. In the summer time in Montreal there would be Montreal Expos baseball games at the Olympic stadium. Mike still loves to look down Mount Royal Street when he does his grocery shopping, and think of the happy times that he had at that giant concrete edifice, watching the Expos, eating hot dogs and dodging concrete slabs falling from the ceiling. Now the Expos are gone from the city, and Mike and his brothers have all since become vegetarians.

Moving around North America and growing up can be unsettling experiences for three brothers. But unusual experiences sometimes result in passionate expressions. All three brothers have grown up to be artists in very different mediums. Mike’s older brother Mark is a writer; he has published two collections of short stories, Other People’s Showers and A Finely Tuned Apathy Machine. You can also find some of his work on his blog. Mike’s younger brother is a professional wrestler. He has been involved with the indie pro wrestling scene in Montreal for over a decade and currently performs at wrestling shows all over Quebec and Ontario. Nic is either to be seen as his alter ego Nic Paterson, president of the IWS and general angry man, or as his alter alter ego, hailing from Stone Mountain, Georgia, eighties wrestling superstar: Jake “the Snake” Roberts.  Mike of course became an actor and then a comedian.

Mike was an actor before he was a comedian. He went to the dome theatre school after high school, deciding to follow his dream of becoming an actor after a College drama teacher told him that he may be poor for the rest of his life, but he might only be happy if he goes for it. Mike had always been the attention getter, the class clown, the big goof, and now he had finally found a way to express himself artistically. Mike dove right in to it, writing and putting on plays, building theatres out of abandoned swimming pools, and loving the Montreal art scene. In 1997 Mike joined a sketch troupe called Yikes and began writing and performing in comedy sketches. The other members of the group told him to try stand up comedy, not because they saw latent talent in Mike, but because they had decided that theirs was going to be a sketch troupe where all the members were also stand up comedians.

After much nudging Mike acquiesced, he hit the stage at Jimbo’s open Mike night with a bang and a crash. The bang was Mike’s loud and outrageous take on comedy, and the crash was his epic failure to make audiences laugh. Like many young comedians, Mike thought he knew better than all the crusty veterans who had been carefully honing their craft for years. He was completely convinced that he could blow everybody out of the water with his outrageous shock comedy. You would not believe the stories that Mike has from this period of his comedy. He used to go onstage with big aviator sunglasses on and say “are you ready to laugh folks?” taking off his sunglasses as dramatically as David Caruso in CSI Miami, to reveal another smaller pair of sunglasses underneath, which he would then wear for the entirety of his set. If the jokes did not do well, Mike would do push-ups on stage. If they did well, Mike would turn the Microphone stand into a bazooka and blast his audiences into submission.  Some of the things Mike came up with at the time are still with us, but the most important thing has changed, which was Mike’s attitude towards comedy. 

Of course Mike had already burned a few bridges with the veterans in the scene at the time before he came around and started asking for advice. But then, a couple of bites of humble pie have never been known to hurt anyone, and soon Mike was working with some excellent mentors to hone his outrageous performance style into a legible comedy routine. Because it no longer mattered why he originally got on the stage, stand up comedy had taken hold of his soul and would never let go.

Fast forward to 2011 and Mike Paterson has been performing stand up comedy for longer than he cares to count. He has been featured in eleven Just For Laughs festivals, and he has travelled all across Canada performing his stand up comedy. He has also continued acting, both theatre and television and film acting.  You might recognize Mike from television, where he has appeared in dozens of commercials as well as TV shows and movies. You can catch Mike on CBC Saturday mornings as the Supermarket “Grosser” Mr. Gross on the children’s game show Surprise! It’s Edible Incredible! Where Mr. Gross teaches children about healthy eating by forcing them to overcome various gross obstacles involving foods they don’t like. Mike’s recent commercial spots include the “Go le Gros” run for sports bar La Cage aux Sports. As well as a Hydro Quebec spot with fellow Montreal Comedian Joey Elias, warning people to look for power lines when renovating their houses. His recent Movies include Crawler, a Fantasia Film Festival favorite about a killer construction machine from outer space, as well as the made for TV movies Stealing Paradise and The Cate Logan Affair. Stay tuned for Mike’s upcoming television projects; he will soon be filming a Comedy Now special, and he is part of the cast of humoriste Real Beland’s hilarious new show for Musique Plus, En Avant la Musique Plus which you can read about Here.

Mike is a multi-talented man, coming at you from many different artistic mediums, including but not limited to, comedy, music and the intricate art of the lip synch. Mike is part of the Dan-D-Lyons, a “musidy” (a word they made up combining music and comedy) duo with Tim Rabnett, in 2006 they released a CD called Syrupy Kisses which includes the hit songs “Testicle Tea” (a song and a recipe) and the incredibly romantic title track “Syrupy Kisses” and the hilarious ‘Christian Rock’ song “God’s watching you make love.”

Mike and Tim have worked together on music before; in 2002 they formed the short-lived band Misogynizer with fellow comedians Rebecca Kohler and Phil Shuchat. Misogynizer was a Cock Rock band with a message, that music can be sexy and funny. Mike’s girlfriend still demands to hear the song “I’m tasting you” whenever Mike is sitting at a piano.

Mike is currently working on a new musical direction. He is once again teaming up with Tim Rabnett, and they are being joined by Montreal Indie Rock musician Andrew Johnston in forming a Hall and Oates cover band called The Real Hall and Oates. Keep an eye out for them!

As the lead back up vocalist in the world’s greatest lip sync band, Never Surrender, Mike has travelled all over Quebec with his fellow Lip Syncers Ryan Wilner and Tim Rabnett, performing lip synced concerts at both French and English venues. Never Surrender also produced three completely lip synced plays at the Montreal and Mineapolis Fringe festivals, as well as the Charleston Comedy Festival. The plays Never Surrender’s GREATEST Adventure, Never Surrender Saves a Baby and Never Surrender III: Centaur Centaur Centaur! Were massive hits at the festivals, garnering Mike hundreds upon hundreds of dollars!

Mike also moonlights as an independent wrestling announcer and sometime grappler with indie wrestling syndicates from Montreal, the IWS and the Inter-species Wrestling Federation. He has been eliminated in two Battle Royals this year and would love to lose another one if someone would let him!

Performing is Mike’s lifeblood but he is also a writer and a director. Mike was a scriptwriter for the Apartment 11 children’s shows, Mystery Hunters and In Real Life. More recently, Mike has been writing and directing comedy sketches for the sketch troupe The Flip Side.

But most of all, Mike is a stand up comedian. You can see him performing live stand up all over Canada. It is a show you won’t soon forget, not only does Mike bring a tremendous infectious energy on stage with him, but he usually gets the whole audience involved by the time he’s through.

In his down time Mike enjoys watching Habs hockey, playing hockey on his playstation, swimming, going to waterparks, the band Rush, going to Rush concerts, going to The Arcade Fire concerts, reading about the Fantastic Four, watching WWE wrestling when his girlfriend will let him, cheese pizza, long walks in the Plateau, beaches, vegetarian Barbeques on his deck, beer, clean sheets, good movies, Harry Potter, road trips, magic, petting and talking about cats, travelling, and going to the theatre.