"Minnesota's most ludicrous comedy duo…" -Pulse

Joshua founded the Scrimshaw Brothers on November 2, 1971. Much of Joshua's early work centered on the development of motor skills and the struggle for sentience. In August of 1974, Joshua brought young Joseph into the act. Aided by a generous supply of nutritious breast milk, Joseph instantly developed skills and abilities that took poor bottle-fed Joshua years to achieve. Thanks to their mother's favoritism, Joshua and Joseph soon became equals… and a comedy team was born!

For many years their act consisted entirely of Hong Kong Fooey impersonations and John Denver covers. Although heralded as "cute" by many of their close relatives, their idiosyncratic blend of pantomime and lip-synch never caught on with the general public (unless of course you count Putting on the Hits). As a result, Joshua and Joseph spent most of their junior high and high school careers wallowing in self-pity. But that self-pity soon turned to self-aggrandizement as the Scrimshaw Brothers exchanged the degradation of high school for the pomp and circumstance of the University of Minnesota.

Awash in notions of art for art's sake and other feel good malarkey, the Scrimshaw Brothers aimed their sights high and began to perform mildly incomprehensible comedy sketches in the dank, dark corners of campus cafés and trinket shops. Their genius was soon recognized and many of their fellow students fled at the sight of them. Displaying a grand lapse in judgement, the University of Minnesota's Student Events Committee commissioned the Brothers to produce an evening of light entertainment. Joshua and Joseph immediately recruited a crack team of high school cronies and dubbed them The Bally-Hoo Players. The result of this collaboration was a two and a half-hour epic entitled The Hypnotic Grind. This comedic Ben-Hur traced the ancestry of two bumbling hypnotists back to their homeland of Mumbozania, a generic eastern European country populated entirely by vaudeville performers. Despite poor production values, conservative script editing and a distinct lack of foul language, many members of the small (or should I say elite?) audience enjoyed the show. Encouraged by a handful of compliments, The Bally-Hoo Players returned to their café and trinket shop gigs with renewed vigor.

Later that year, the U of M once again tapped The Bally-Hoo Players' still somewhat hidden talents, inviting them to perform as part of a CLA arts festival. Their new show was much shorter than its predecessor and featured the debut of Li'l Orphan Auggie, a character Scrimshaw fans would eventually come to love and fear. Although well received at the U of M, the show died a hideous death later that summer at the 1995 Minnesota Fringe Festival. The City Pages called it many things including, "lowbrow… infantile… and just plain embarrassing". The Bally-Hoo Players promptly climbed into the spacious new orifices their critics so conveniently opened for them and spent the next year in hiding. This period of shame did them well though. They returned to the Fringe that following year with a brand new show, That's Not Entertainment. Cautiously described by the Star-Tribune as "twisted… demented" and "…perfect for those so inclined", That's Not Entertainment was one of the top ten selling acts of the 1996 festival. Hesitant to tempt fate, The Bally-Hoo Players disbanded shortly thereafter.

With two utterly useless degrees to fall back on, the Scrimshaw Brothers struck out on their own. They returned to the U of M only once as guest lecturers on the subject of comedy duos for the U's "Comedy: Text and Theory" course (basically an excuse to force students to watch Martin and Lewis movies while Joshua and Joseph sat on the instructor's desk and drank Colt 45 in their underwear). Since then they have written, produced and performed dozens of local comedy shows including such cult classics as Notice the Ass, A One Woman Show Starring the Scrimshaw Brothers, Sex Drugs and Wacka-Wacka, The Scrimshaw Brothers Save Christmas and Odd Little Men. In that same time, the Scrimshaw Brothers have performed with Bedlam Theatre, The Fool's Tree Players, True North Theatre, ThreePenny Improv, The National Theater for Children, Clown Time Productions and Soylent Theater. They are founding members of the soon to be infamous improv troupe, The Impossibles, and proud producers of Look Ma No Pants, the Twin Cities best and only late night comedy/variety show. In civilian life, Joseph uses his B.S. degree to give legendary customer service as an assistant manager at Kinko's IDS in downtown Minneapolis. Joshua is married to modern dancer Adrienne English. Their son, Aaron Jacob English Scrimshaw, was born May 6th 2000. Sadly, Aaron entered the world with a complete lack of physical deformities, forever dashing Joshuaís dreams of a novelty act.