With a Gemini award, a judging gig on the Global Television series PopStars: The One and a stand-up set that kills just about everywhere he performs, Canadian comic Jason Rouse has out grown his status as the country’s most promising up-and-coming performer. With a firm place among Canada’s best, Rouse is already straining at the limits of the country’s comedy business, and he’s looking to the US as the setting for his next big move.

After a scandalous set that touches on sex with the handicapped, his relationship with a mannequin and more than one tale of sexual abuse, Rouse usually has an audience in the palm of his hand (it works on black comedy night crowds and it works on audiences of middle-aged woman). He sat down with us after a recent performance to discuss what he’s accomplished and where he’s headed.

Your show is really well put together.

It’s funny. I can do the show that I did here tonight a thousand times, and it doesn’t really mean anything.

What do you mean?

It pays my rent. But if I did that in Los Angeles, I’d have a development deal with a major network.

People do stand-up comedy in the US to get sit-coms. Canadian comics do comedy to maybe make a living, if they’re lucky. The good ones are lucky enough to pay their rent, and some of them own cars. I think the guys that own the cars are the guys at the top of the food chain.

I hit the roof here. I’m as high as I can go, outside of having my own television show. That’s the only thing that I need, and I’ve done everything in this country as far as comedy. I’ve won a Gemini, I’ve won awards and scholarships to schools. Everything I could possibly get in this country outside of my own show, I’ve achieved. So I’m starting to smother and I need to get out.

So you’re looking to work in the US now?

I’m lucky enough to have management in Los Angeles, but until I get a deal where they’ll sponsor me to get a green card, I’m flying back and forth, showcasing and hoping. Come back. Regroup. Showcase.

I’m like… What’s it called when you’re at the highest level in University? Valedictorian? I’m a valedictorian.

I’d love to stay in Canada. I’ve been trying to get meetings with networks. I have about four different show ideas, and a cast of writers and people. My producer has two Emmys, yet I can’t get phone calls returned.

I won a Gemini, and I’ve basically got a book-end. I gave it to my mom. She liked it more than I did. I was going to go down to the CBC and throw it through the window. But that would have made me look bad. My mom would go “where’s the fucking award?”

I threw it through the CBC window, mom.

Who wasn’t returning your calls?

I’m generalizing. Not everybody has been like that. But I’ve been working with some people on a show, and we’ve been trying to get meetings for six months with Canadians for stuff that I wanted to give them first crack at.

But I’m going back to Los Angeles in the fall to do showcases at the Improv and I’m going to have all my shows in my hand. And somebody’s going to buy one of them after they see me. They’ve got money and writers and staffs of people. It’s like “Ok, we’ll take this guy and this idea and put it in our machine that is tried and true.”

What you do doesn’t seem like it would fit that easily into the TV format.

Yes and no. I did a one-hour show that was aired on prime-time television in Canada. And I take advantage of this [Yuk Yuk’s] because there’s no holds barred here. There’s no censorship here, and that’s what got me this far. I’ve had the opportunity just to go so far over the line and not have to worry about [Yuk Yuk’s owner Mark Breslin] going “this is bad for business.” Mark has never ever said anything. He’s just like “you do what you’ve got to do” and he doesn’t even flinch. He loves it. People walk out and he doesn’t give a shit, because the 10 people that walk out will tell 20 or 30 more people and those people will come back.

It comes down to the fact that not everything I do is shock-based. I just like to see how far I can take it before I lose them. And I took them so many crazy places, they were like [clapping] into it, you know? They’re going to be telling stories for weeks about what happened. “And then he shit on a dead porcupine. And then he did a funny joke you should have been there his dad fucked his neck.”

Everyone was pretty nervous when you were building up to that joke where your dad fucks your neck.

That’s pure acting. I can convince an audience it’s true and then I just drop the sledgehammer on them. It’s fun to do stuff like that. And then I can do something silly, like French cartoons, that can travel anywhere on television. I have material that’s set that I can do on TV. I’ve done [Open Mike with Mike Bullard] a couple of times.

I’ll cut it down and make it more my voice without the filthy parts. But I can still do what I do. I’ve played shows for like, 200 middle-aged women. I do black comedy shows, which are the hardest audiences anywhere in this country. They will boo you in a heartbeat, and I’ve been lucky enough to be one of the few comics that has been able to cross into that audience and rip it up.

Can you tell us about the shows you’ve been working on?

One is a game show called “Gender Benders.” I’m the host. I play a half-man, half-woman. It’s hilarious, but that’s about all I can tell you.

I have another show that’s kind of like Wizard of Oz meets Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. The whole show takes place in a coma. I’m in a coma, and the show is taking place in my mind. People who come visit me in the hospital are pulled into the show.

I have another show that’s kind of like an MTV Road Rules kind of thing. I shot the pilot for it over a year ago, and it’s hysterical. It’s me and two freinds did two weeks in the Maritimes and we I shot two weeks of DV tape. We edited it down to a one-hour and ten minute show, and it is fucking hilarious. 99 percent of it is in the car, and the whole dashboard is full of urine bottles. We get in a car accident. Steve fucks a chick with a beard in one of the towns. It’s hysterical.

The other idea I have is kind of like Cheers, but it takes place in a tattoo shop. I’m more or less Ted Danson to this cast of misfits and people come in and out.

And I did do a pilot for the CBC. It was a drama. I played an older brother to a guy who was in a car accident. And he was in a wheelchair. He was like the hockey hero of this small town, on his way to the NHL, and the was in a car accident and paralyzed. And rather than feel sorry for himself, he decides he’s going to take on two jobs and pay his way through university. I’m an asshole to him through the whole movie. I’m like Bill Murray is to Woody Harrelson in Kingpin. I’m just a real prick to the guy and I treat him like shit and I hate his friends. There’s some really serious acting, but they let me do what I do. I had a call a week ago and they said it’s amazing. So I’m looking forward to seeing that.

What happens if everybody around here starts trying to do Jason Rouse in their acts?

There are some people that already are kind of mimicking me on some levels, which is fine. Whatever. I know I’m the original. I’m the same guy off-stage that I am up there. It’s just the volume turned up.

I get in the zone, where you’re so in control and so fearless that whatever you say you have total commitment to, and you know they’re going to love it. And even if they don’t, hey, you can always snap them back any second.