Natasha Leggero: “Live At Bimbo’s” (Comedy Central)

Natasha Leggero opens her first hour special on Comedy Central with a five-minute music video, “Diamond Pussy,” in which she raps and tells an executive played by Thomas Lennon that she wanted to call her entire special, “Diamond Pussy.”

What would the Leggero who served as a judge on season 7 of Last Comic Standing have to say about this opening to the Leggero who stars in Natasha Leggero: Live at Bimbo’s?

Better hope there’s enough jokes in the other 36 minutes to make this special special. Actually, make that 34 minutes. There’s a two-minute video that buttons the ending.

Comedy Central already announced earlier in the week a second-season renewal for Another Period, the soap opera parody Leggero stars in with Riki Lindhome and an extended cast of comedians set in 1920s Rhode Island. As a stand-up, she’s far from “Natty Legs,” and more like from another class. A higher-class looking down upon all of us plebes, what with her fake fur and pearls and affected accent.

But as soon as she sucks on her e-cig in the first minute in front of her live audience in San Francisco, Leggero is quick to make fun of her own decision-making. “So cool and new we don’t even know the side effects yet,” she quips, then inhaling once more. “Literally, no testing’s been done.” Then again, at least she’s not like her non-comedian friends, who are mothers now. Leggero jokes that her dogs may die in 12 years, but she can replace them, and that pussy will remain as valuable as a diamond. “That pussy be tight!”

Like many stand-up comedians of the single female variety, Leggero will joke about abortions cutting short any potential pregnancies she might face. But she then elevates the premise of her discussion to more thoughtful, colorful social commentary by putting herself in a state such as Utah that still makes abortions difficult for regular women of all ages.

“Here’s what I don’t understand, Republican white male Christian dudes. I cannot kill a tadpole living inside of me. But as soon as it expands and comes out and grows up, you have full reign to pay it minimum wage, or take away its health insurance, blow it up if there’s a war. Fuck you, Republicans!”

No apologies (as she explained at the start of 2014 in a public non-apology for her words on live TV during a New Year’s Eve broadcast) out of Leggero. And God bless her for it.

Leggero stands feisty and fierce, underneath the artifice of her wardrobe and vocal stylings. She’s the comedian who came out swinging hardest and best in the most recent Comedy Central Roasts, putting Justin Bieber and the male comedians on the dais in their place. In this hour, Leggero sticks it to hipster boys and men who enjoy Burning Man, suggesting it as one of her “concerns” (her replacement for wedding vows) toward her future spouse.

She’s ready to roast men who swipe Tinder on the toilet, and rib cabbies for being nicer to passengers now that Lyft and Uber have forced their hand.

She’s among the chorus calling for cable channel TLC to give in and rebrand itself as “Toddlers, Lunatics and Cake,” adding: “You know it’s good when two shows get cancelled because of Christian child molesters.” She goes in hard on other TLC characters given the spotlight for strange addictions and “birth certificate typos,” fat toddlers, teen moms, Playboy Radio DJs, and women who “upspeak,” or worse yet, “growl” like the Kardashians. “How did an Armenian family of whores capture the heart of America?”

It’s the circle of life. A sad circle, indeed.

With barely more than a half-hour of stand-up here, Leggero certainly leaves us wanting more. But you better listen up to what she does have to say in her time onstage, because it’s worth paying attention to.

That goes double for you, Martin Lawrence.

Natasha Leggero: Live at Bimbo’s debuts tonight at 11 ET/PT on Comedy Central, and is available online in an extended uncensored version.

You can find it on iTunes here as an album or video:

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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