Watching Matt Besser’s Magical Sack of Dump at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in New York City, you might have thought that it lacked some planning…but that’s all part of the plan. After all, Matt Besser has made his name as an improviser and sketch comedian who helped create the Upright Citizens Brigade in the first place. Who needs planning? We’ve got some videos and some characters and let’s let the audience dictate the rest. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you.
Besser had an hour an 45 minutes in store for last night’s audience, beginning even before the beginning, working out his intro with Pat the master UCB tech. This lasted several minutes, with Besser critiquing each and every possible intro Pat offered as the audience filed into the venue. After several minutes of this, Besser said to Pat: "Also, you sound kind of put upon, if you could add a little excitement." Pat attempted such, which only prompted Besser to say: "Now you sound like a DJ." They played upon the notion that Besser had created and produced Comedy Central’s short-lived Crossballs, that Besser was a founding member of the UCB, and his roles and the significance of such in Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor.
Things I learned during the show:
1) Besser has a very NSFW video for his alias as Mark Dunn, King of the 3-Way. And he spent the better part of 20 minutes showing the video and taking audience questions about 3-ways afterward. Apparently, his f*** version of his "Bucket List" includes a 3-way with Hannah Montana and Miley Ray Cyrus. "I call it the best of both worlds…or There Will Be Blood." OK. I’ll try not to include too many more spoilers.
2) But Besser wants me to tell you that French DJs, such as J.U.S.T.I.C.E., are robots. That’s what he learned last week at the SXSW Playboy party.
3) Robots could never infiltrate the human race as comedians. "They have no timing. They rush the punchlines!" Besser said.
4) His NYC audience broke down along estimated religious heritages of 20 percent Jewish, 20 percent Protestant, 50 percent Catholic and 10 percent other (mostly Muslim).
5) Besser grew up half-Jewish, half-Christian, and now is an atheist.
6) Besser only follows 1.5 of the accepted Ten Commandments, so he suggested replacements for the others. (I won’t spoil that for you, just yet)
7) Besser has a theory about who wears what kind of hats.
8) According to track #8 of his CD, "May I Help You Dumbass," Besser attempted to counteract the many phone calls who mistook him for tech support, and did so quite humorously.
9) His version of Pope Benedict has a gay test that only results in one answer. (Hint: You’re gay)
10) He looks enough like the founder of MySpace to produce a funny election video.
11) He won’t make fun of audience members from Little Rock, Ark., because that’s where he is from.
12) His send-up of Last Comic Standing with America’s Best Comic contestant/winner Jason Yellow, the deaf, blind, armless comedian, is so damning (in a good way) that he told the audience he’d have to put it online so we could see more of him.
13) Comedy Central will air a special uncensored 90-minute version of ASSSSCAT this Friday night (well, 1 a.m. Saturday), and that special will be available on DVD next week (March 25).