If laughter is the best medicine then Jasper residents should be in pretty good health after the aptly named “Boob Tour” hit town on Sunday evening.

The laughs emanating from a packed Champs Lounge were positively infectious as a group of popular Canadian comics brought their best material to the Sawridge Inn and Conference Centre, as part of the tour’s stint in northwestern Alberta.

Billed as a “comedy show with the breast of intentions,” the goal of the tour is to raise awareness of breast cancer and other forms of the disease, raise money for cancer charities and local support groups, and raise spirits with the power of laughter, especially in the face of something so serious.

Created by James Uloth, who was born in Hinton and grew up in the Wildwood/Evansburg area, the tour is now celebrating its first anniversary and more than $100,000 raised so far. It was a personal connection to cancer that motivated Uloth to get the idea up and running.

“I lost my friend’s mom to cancer when we were 16,” he said. “Since then I’ve become a professional comedian and I wanted to help out and raise some money, especially for people in his situation.”

Uloth began simply by selling stickers, patches and T-shirts after his shows to raise funds, but soon realized he wanted to do more. So he used some of the money from those sales as seed money to get the tour off the ground.

“What I wanted to do was turn this money into big money,” he said.

Funds raised locally will go towards the Jasper Cancer Action and Support Group.

“The group has a number of different functions,” explained Cynthia Ball, who was taking tickets at the door of the Jasper show. “We provide funds for people going to the city for treatment because all of the costs aren’t covered – staying in a hotel and travel costs. We can hook people up with emotional support – somebody to talk to. And sometimes members of the group get involved with other fundraising activities … like the breast cancer walk in Edmonton, for example.”

“I like it when it gets right to the community like in Jasper here,” Uloth added. “This support group does a lot of things for the individuals facing cancer, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Uloth acted as MC for the evening, which also featured performances by Allison Lane, Ron Josol, Tracey MacDonald and Greg Kettner.

“A lot of them have very direct, personal connections,” Uloth said. “Tracey, unfortunately, lost her mom in 2007 to cancer. Allison Lane is a breast cancer survivor. Greg Kettner had some cancer in his family as well. It’s actually pretty hard to find now somebody who hasn’t been personally touched by this.”

Lane’s personal battle with cancer was documented on video and presented prior to her performance. At one point she also called people up on stage to test their knowledge about breasts in a game-show style setting in which one male participant served as the “buzzer” by wearing a bra filled with plush balls while others had to “buzz in” by grabbing onto his ample, fake bosom.

The show marked the fifth and final stop in the tour’s northwest Alberta leg. It moves next to southern Alberta, beginning with a show on Oct. 6 in Canmore.

Uloth said he hopes to see the event continue to grow.

“Hopefully they’ll keep going long after I’m able to run these and we’ll just keep fighting cancer with laughter,” he said.

A sample of some of the (more family-friendly) material from the Boob Tour

Greg Kettner:

• “I’m 36 and single. Well, I was when I wrote the joke. Now I’m just single.”

• “The last girl I dated, I thought she might have been the one. We had a lot in common. She also had red hair. We liked long walks on the beach. And we both had great boobs.”

Ron Josol:

• “If your CD skips today you just have to burn a new one, right? Back in the day, when your tape skipped you could hear it skip. Then you’d take it out and see it all unravelled. You’d be like ‘What do we do?’ and the one guy in the back of the car would be like: ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got a pencil!”

• “I hate American security. I took a flight to Illinois and this big fancy guard comes up to me and he’s like:

– ‘Where are you going?’

– ‘Chicago.’

– ‘For what?’

– ‘Stand-up comedy.’

– ‘Are you a comedian?’

–‘Yeah.’

– ‘Say something funny.’

– ‘You’re good looking.’

I never made it to Chicago.”

Allison Lane:

• “I decided to keep my boobs (rather than get a mastectomy). And I’m really glad I did. I’m just so proud of them. And so I’m just saying to you guys, after the show, if you want to come up to me … my boobs are your boobs. Do what you gotta do.”

• “So we’re all here to celebrate boobs, right? (Looks at a man in the audience.) I’m going to celebrate with you after. I’m in room 168.”

Tracey MacDonald:

• “I don’t know if there are any curvy women in audience tonight, but when you’re curvy you get bad compliments. I was going out with this one guy and he’s like, ‘Tracey, I love your new thong underwear.’ And I was like, ‘Thanks, but it’s not a thong. They’re just stuck.’”

• “My ex-boyfriend actually lives out here in Jasper. I’ve been trying to get back at him for dumping me like every day. For two years I’ve been sticking pins in this voodoo doll, pretending it’s him. Yeah, I ran into him today. He had lost weight and quit smoking. Turns out I was just giving him acupuncture.”