At a time when it’s getting increasingly difficult to find any non-political,  laugh-out-loud comedy and everyone is losing their sense of humor, comedian Tom Hearn has resurrected the lost art of impersonation and gone viral with his spot-on impressions of a growing stable of personalities like Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, Reba McEntire, Frankie Valli and most recently, Sobbin Robyn from Sister Wives and husband Cody himself.   And he’s got a closet of no less than 100 wigs to back it up – how fabulous is that? Together with his comedy partner Anna Roisman, who delivers a mean Kris Jenner, Joan Rivers and Bethenny Frankel, Hearn will bring the Fabulous Sweetie Tour to the Regent Theater in downtown L.A.  on Thursday, Oct. 24 and the Voodoo Room at the House of Blues San Diego on Sunday, Oct. 27. It all started during the pandemic when his partner was roasting a chicken in their small Toronto apartment.  “Ina Garten is famous for her roast chicken and at that moment I became Ina,” the stand-up comic tells L.A. Weekly. “For years before that, I always loved her and wanted to do something with her, but never knew how to navigate it and the opportunity never arose. And quite frankly, I didn’t think anybody else would care about her enough for it to be worthwhile. Courtesy Tom Hearn “So that night I threw on a blue shirt that I had in the house that I use for auditions and a bob wig that I had and another short brown wig I put underneath so I could have bangs,” says Hearn. “I did the video, popped it up and the next morning I woke up and it had millions of views on it. I was shocked.  I knew people loved the queen like I do, but I never thought it would resonate like that in the comedy space.  So I figured if people like this, I’m going to keep on doing this as long as I can get away with it.” With more than 500K followers combined on Instagram and Tiktok and 150 million views later, he was recognized as one of “The Best TikTok Creators To Follow In 2023” by ET Canada. Delivered in delicious gay snark, his relentless teasing of Garten’s elusive husband Jeffrey,  an endless supply of suggestive props, and impersonation of a comatose Frankie Valli on tour are hysterical and addictive. “It’s fun, implied humor.  Do some people get it in their craw a little bit and say that I’m poking fun?  Yeah, I’m a comedian.  I never set out to be an ina garten impersonator. Like making fun of Jeffrey for being gay – he’s not – he’s been in a loving relationship with this woman for 50-plus years.  I guarantee you if I were to meet Jeffrey, he’d be more than secure in his sexuality and these jokes don’t make any difference to him whatsoever.  It makes a difference to those people on the internet. And I say to those people sometimes, that’s your internal homophobia showing.  You think there’s something wrong with being gay.  That’s why you’re offended.  I’m not saying anything about him that’s wrong. It’s innuendo, it’s fun.” Tom Hearn as Ina Garten, left, and Anna Roisman as Joan Rivers (Courtesy Tom Hearn via IG) While Hearn hasn’t heard from Garten herself, he’s got full love and support from the Food Network, who stays in touch and even created a meme for him that he could use.  His naughty type of satiric humor is a testament to the secret behind what has made Saturday Night Live last for 50 years, and his homage to Ina parallels fellow Canadian Dan Aykroyd’s iconic Julia Child impersonation. Hearn finds inspiration in nostalgia and prefers to immortalize personalities that he connects with. “For me, the Reba show is one of the comfort shows that I grew up with,” says Hearn, who moved to New York this week. “I’ve seen it a thousand times and have been doing a version in my stage show for years.  So I popped it online and the rest was history. I had pretty much forgotten about  Rachael Ray, but rediscovered her on a Food Network deep dive and started watching 30 Minute Meals and said, I can do that.   “If I did Sabrina Carpenter I’d probably get dragged even worse than with any of my current impressions,” says the Second City National Touring Company alumnus. “I’m not making fun of them, that’s what comedy is. Viewers have kind of lost the sense of how to ingest comedy and not perceive it as negative.   That’s satire. It’s what comedians have been doing for eons and  I’m so happy to see more comedians coming out of the hibernation of not doing characters.”    The post Impressionist Tom Hearn Barefoots Into LA – How Fabulous Is That? appeared first on LA Weekly.