Jimmy Mac

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Jimmy Mac

The following is a post shared by Extreme Improv founder David Pustansky upon learning of the passing of our friend Jimmy Mac in late April 2023.

Yesterday we learned of the passing of our friend Jimmy Mac. Everyone at Extreme Improv would like to extend our condolences to the family and friends who knew Jimmy. He was smart, funny and caring, and will be greatly missed by everyone that knew him. He was a great friend to us and has been a huge part of the Extreme Improv XStreamed shows.

Jimmy Mac was always fun to have on shows, and great to chat to before and after performances, as well as in our group chats. He had a vast knowledge around a huge range of topics and was always able to draw upon this to create fun characters, puns, and hugely enjoyable scenes which made him a pleasure to perform with.

I first met Jimmy through the Comedy Friendzy show and was thrilled when he wanted to start joining the Extreme Improv shows as I knew he’d help enrich the show and over the last couple of years has been one of our most consistent players. We had a shared love of early Simpsons episodes and of the British TV show Red Dwarf and it always made me smile inside when I spotted that he was doing the most obscure of refences to one of these shows just to see if I’d spot it. It happened often. Likewise, he’d always throw in Seinfeld references for Rob to get and although I didn’t get them it always made me laugh how he was always having fun and entertaining his friends.

He was a big fan of Star Trek the Next Generation and hosted a podcast about the show, and when he’d appear on our Geek Battle show he’d always used the name Commander Jimmy Mac. I always found it fun to give him this title and referred to him as such more often than not. Newer players or audience may not have known why we called him Commander, but as long as they knew he was our Commander that’s all that mattered.

Jimmy blew our minds when he and DB pulled off the surprise of the century by breaking down the fourth wall and he and DB appeared on our online show together in the same location in person much to everyone’s surprise. In the strange world where so many of us haven’t met in person but have performed together dozens if not hundreds of times it pains me that we all didn’t get that opportunity to hang out and perform with Jimmy Mac in person.

Jimmy Mac was the only performer to perform with the Extreme Improv Flames in both the Team Championships and was a grand finalist in the second year. He was also a grand finalist in two World Championships. He would always put on his finalist medals whenever he won our weekly show, a ritual he did on his last appearance on Extreme Improv XStreamed which he won.

I know that Jimmy Mac will be greatly missed and our hearts go out to his family and friends. Jimmy loved his recurring jokes and catchphrases, and I’m sure if you knew Jimmy or watched the shows you’d understand the following. So, to quote our friend…

I have nothing to promote right now, so I’ll just leave you with this (takes off glasses, put’s on a Southern States accent) If you are one heck of a improviser and an even better friend….you must be Commander Jimmy Mac.