The pandemic has largely sidelined in-person stand-up comedy, but plenty of comics were able to release specials that were taped before March 2020 where audiences inside crowded theaters could laugh out loud and not worry about spreading a potentially deadly virus.
Here’s a sampling of specials available to stream. Netflix is heavily represented simply because that has become the biggest and highest-paying option for comics. Dave Chappelle’s special is the only one that was taped after March; in his case, it was in response to George Floyd’s death.
Credit: Amazon Prime
Credit: Amazon Prime
“Jim Gaffigan: The Pale Tourist” Amazon Prime, two episodes
Gaffigan is one of the most popular stand up comics in the country. Why? His relatable Average Joe persona. He isn’t snide, political or dirty. For Amazon, he decided to challenge himself by going to foreign countries and learning enough about each country to create an entire show based on jokes about said country. Unfortunately, he was only able to do two before the pandemic made traveling overseas verboten.
In Canada, he cracks wise about Drake, the ubiquity of Tim Hortons and poutine, a Canadian dish featuring fries, gravy and cheese curds. “It’s a little irresponsible,” he says. “It’s like someone was trying to make french fries more unhealthy!” In Spain, where the cultural divide is wider, he digs into paella, churches, castles and siestas. And when he hits a chord that might be even borderline offensive, he plays a character mocking himself. In one case, he whispers: “This guy’s a jerk — a jerk who’s done research!”
“Jim Jefferies: Intolerant” Netflix
The edgy Australian comic recently had a Comedy Central talk show where he brought a bemused outsider’s point of view about American foibles. (He became a naturalized American citizen in 2018.) This special focuses on a mix of personal and broad societal issues.
Jefferies tackles his own midlife lactose intolerance, how “woke” his dad is and how annoying he feels Millennials can be. He observes that overweight people are now immune from being shamed compared to, say, those who are sexist or racist. “We have to look at fat people and go, you be your best self. You’re looking great!” And like a lot of comics of his ilk, he complains that people want him to apologize for misogynistic jokes he made many years go when the “line” was different than it was today.
But when he taped this last year in Boston, he was ahead of his time by noting how unfunny blackface is, before TV shows from yore featuring blackface began disappearing from streaming services a few weeks ago: “It’s so much easier to not do blackface. Like you don’t have to do anything! Just save yourself time.”
“Leslie Jones: Time Machine” Netflix
At age 52, she became famous — courtesy of her exuberant run on “Saturday Night Live,” joining the cast at age 47, older than anybody else in the history of the show. “I’m white person famous!” she announces triumphantly moments after stepping on stage.
Jones possesses a kinetic energy few people 20 years younger could muster. She opens early with a story about going to a Grammy party in her 20s and seeing Prince. When Prince sings “Gett Off,” she demonstrates her dance moves in a sequence that goes far longer than most comics would have dared. Yet she gets away with it through pure physical moxie.
She spends part of the time yelling at a 20-something in the first row as part of her schtick: “Enjoy your [expletive] 20s!” Being in her 50s, her running philosophy is “I don’t give a [expletive]!”
Yvonne Orji: Momma, I Made It, HBO Max
Orji, who plays Issa Rae’s sidekick on HBO’s “Insecure,” nabs a little synergistic love with her own comedy special, which includes clips from her concert in Washington D.C. and a visit to her home country of Nigeria.
This means loving jokes about Nigerian heritage and stereotypes, including email scams, an inability to provide proper directions and a penchant for haggling. She said she herself tries to haggle over her student loans with loan officers. (“I am not interested in paying interest,” she says, using her Nigerian accent.)
Her parents are interviewed, and they admit that Orji’s choice to become a comedienne is disappointing for them. Of course, they remind her that she should have been a doctor. When Orji cut her finger, her mom mocked her: “Laugh and make yourself feel better!”
“Fortune Feimster: Sweet and Salty” Netflix
Feimster, now 40, grew up in the South in the 1990s with no clue she was gay. She only came out at age 25 in 2005. A North Carolina native, she became a popular panelist on E!‘s “Chelsea Lately” and made a mark on “The Mindy Project” as a lesbian nurse.
Her first hour-long special for Netflix covers her coming-of-age story with all sorts of joyfully self-deprecating stories, such as the race to get to Chili’s after church, her odd 18th birthday party at Hooters and how a Lifetime movie made her realize she was into women. She is comfortable in her own skin, and her sweetness on stage greatly trumps the salty.
“Marc Maron: End Times Fun” Netflix
Marc Maron, 56 at the time of the special, has been an auteur and thinker on multiple levels for decades. Besides stand up, he has a super popular podcast and has received accolades for his acting on the Netflix hit show “Glow.” This particular special, taped last year, seems prescient courtesy of its title.
Maron is clearly wary of three years of the current president and makes a lot of jokes about climate change. But the 2019 Maron doesn’t know what is coming: the pandemic, recession and social justice protests. He actually wonders what could bring such a divided nation closer. “What would it take?” he asks, then concludes: “something terrible.” His scenario: the sky on fire. But he knows nothing will bring Americans together, not even a tragedy, noting that someone will listen to Sean Hannity and conclude, “Burning sky’s good for America... A lot of jobs in a burning sky. ... That doesn’t even make sense stupid!”
In other words, supporters of President Trump might squirm at this comedy special, especially his final set piece involving Mike Pence and Jesus. It’s not for the fainthearted.
Credit: Allyson Riggs/Netflix
Credit: Allyson Riggs/Netflix
“Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-LIfe Crisis” Netflix
At age 25, Tomlinson is relatively young to get her own Netflix special, but she has been working at her craft since age 16, including a stint on “Last Comic Standing” and multiple late night talk show stints.
With cheerful aplomb and old-school polish, Tomlinson approaches life like someone far wiser than her years, noting people her age generally have poor judgment. “That’s why you’re thin in your twenties,” she says. “You don’t have a gut to listen to yet!”
She tackles her failed engagement, saying the ring never felt comfortable on her finger: ”It kept getting caught on stuff, like sweaters and my freedom.” She then addresses online dating, trying OkCupid, “I didn’t know it was a bad one. I should’ve known. It sounds like giving up.” And while she nibbles on pot edibles to go to sleep, she eschews alcohol: “I’ve never been drunk cause I’m pretty sure I’m an alcoholic.”
Credit: Kent Smith/NETFLIX © 2020
Credit: Kent Smith/NETFLIX © 2020
“Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything” Netflix
The Emmy-winning Oswalt experienced tragedy when his wife suddenly died in her sleep in 2016, and he addressed his pain and grief in his 2017 special “Annihilation.” He has since found peace, a second wife and no shortage of material for his latest special. His tone is far more mellow than it was in his younger, angrier days.
The special focuses on accepting compromises at age 50. For health reasons, he now consumes bland organic breakfast cereals which “taste like unpopular teenager’s poetry.” He also hikes, which he calls “my little doom ovals.” He says it’s not really exercise but a segue between actual exercise in your 20s and 30s and the “gentle mall walking you do in your 70s and 80s.”
And his body type now? “A woman can look at me and go, ‘Look at that comfy old beanbag chair!’ But it also helps, he adds, if you “think of Idris Elba.”
“Dave Chappelle: 8:46″ YouTube
After nearly three months on ice due to the pandemic, Chappelle felt compelled to unleash commentary after George Floyd died from a cop choking him. He released this 27-minute discourse free in June on YouTube, where audience social distancing and masks were notable.
There are standard Chappelle-style jokes. This is more Chappelle unleashing anger and frustration in a public forum. He recalls how terrified he was during an earthquake that lasted maybe 35 seconds decades ago and compared that to the 8 minutes and 46 seconds Floyd was kept immobile by a police officer: “This kid knew he was going to die. He called for his dead mother. I’ve only seen this once before. My father on his death bed called for his grandmother. This man knew he was going to die.”
After listing examples of other Black folks killed by cops, he mused, “This is not funny.” But that was not the point. He gave plenty of love to those in the audience who were in the streets protesting: “Carry on young ones!” At age 47, he says he’s happy to be “in the back seat of the car.”
“Hannibal Buress: Miami Nights” YouTube
The veteran comic and actor is best known for a joke about Bill Cosby that went viral and led to Cosby going to prison for sexual assault. He has also been a bevy of films including “Tag,” Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Neighbors.”
During this special, he considers himself “medium famous.”
That means “I constantly talk people out of recognizing me. The Rock can’t do that [expletive.]!” he said.
Buress brings a bemused, lighthearted feel to his material, whether it’s his friends mocking his asthma, the incredible coolness of Autotune and regular offers to host game shows, something he has yet to do but may one day. “The prophecy will be fulfilled,” he proclaimed with mock seriousness. “But the time is not now.”
He spent a good portion of the special explaining his 2017 arrest for drunken disorderly conduct in Miami. Buruss said he antagonized a cop who refused to call him an Uber. At one point, he promotes his social media bonafides directly to the cop’s bodycam. On the screen, he shows a news report about his arrest, noting amusingly how a reporter’s neck moved in a disapproving way when she said he refused to leave “several times.” “She put some stank on it,” he observes.
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