Review: Jim Gaffigan, “Quality Time” on Amazon Prime Video

There’s a moment in Jim Gaffigan’s first Amazon comedy special, which also is Amazon’s first Amazon Originals comedy special, in which the comedian reveals: “I do sometimes lie up here.”

He says it as a segue to jokes about needing to lie to one’s children, and other jokes, including 10 minutes of jokes about horses, most of which are based in solid truth.

I point this out because it’s extra funny how he decides to lie at the very beginning of Quality Time, mocking his appearance as if he’s preparing for some movie role by eating himself out of shape. “I wish I had an excuse,” he jokes. “There is no movie.” The truth is that Gaffigan has enjoyed a hot streak of film casting; that is, when he hasn’t been touring the world with his stand-up and his family along for the ride.

Of course, the lie serves the joke. Gaffigan shouldn’t be worried about his big-screen success getting in the way of his stand-up career, though.

There’s a reason Amazon would choose him to launch its Amazon Originals foray into stand-up.

Here’s just a bit of his many bits about horses!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch6JHAAXdD4

From my review in Decider:

If Noble Ape offered a more revelatory perspective from Gaffigan, reflecting on his wife’s brain tumor and subsequent surgery, as well as the surreal experience of performing at an event for Pope Francis, then Quality Time lets the audience back into the comedian’s comfort zones: food, fatherhood, and exercises in extreme laziness.

The most personal material in this 75-minute set recounts how Gaffigan needed an airlift in Alaska for an emergency appendectomy while vacationing with his family.

And while he’s not overtly political, he does insert some jabs at our cultural priorities from time to time. In this special, he realizes “the appendix is like a Kardashian. Think about it: It’s a mystery to everyone. But to some of us causes excruciating pain.”

Read my full review in Decider.

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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