The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Dave Chappelle turned a local pavilion in his Ohio town into his personal performance venue during the pandemic, and right out of the gate last month, he addressed the Black Lives Matter protests that sprung up in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the knees of the …
If you want to know why Hannah Gadsby’s 2020 Netflix special is called Douglas, there’s reasons more than the basic one she gives about her dog. As she explains: If you want to know why she’s following up Nanette at all, after declaring she was done with comedy? Gadsby said …
HBO has found success in the past year with having stand-up comedians go back home with a documentary camera crew in tow to fill in and flesh out the details of jokes and allow the audience to embrace the comedian even more. Gary Gulman. Whitmer Thomas. Now Yvonne Orji, whom …
The encore of Gina Brillon’s first Amazon Original comedy special is more powerful and moving than what precedes it, as she reveals who influenced her to even dream about comedy in the first place, and what it means to fulfill her dreams. Everything else is very much 2020. 2020 is …
Jesus Trejo scored an impressive debut with his first stand-up special, which premiered on Showtime in May. Trejo’s first joke will hit home with people stuck at home in quarantine, as he describes an unusual online purchase. “I ordered an hourglass, and man it came, I was so excited. I …
Patton Oswalt had reasons to be happy again in 2020, finding love once more after becoming unexpectedly widowed a few years earlier. Oswalt says he had resigned himself to a lifetime of gray after his first wife died on the eve of his 2016 Netflix special’s release. But finding love …
Jimmy O. Yang went from Silicon Valley on HBO to Space Force on Netflix. That’s a great deal! That’s not the Good Deal he’s talking about in his first stand-up special, though. He’s more interested in basic stereotypes and exploring his fame. Too much of this hour, though, covers territory …
Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t play by today’s comedy rules. He spent 22 years touring before presenting this hour of jokes on Netflix. Which means if you’re a Seinfeld fan, you’ve heard some of this stuff two decades ago now. As I wrote in May: All of which makes Seinfeld even more …
Long-form improv doesn’t have much of a track record onscreen, because it’s so difficult to translate a completely ad-libbed show that exists in the moment and capture it for future audiences. So Netflix gave Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz three separate episodes to showcase their improv chops. Two-prov allows the …
I don’t know why Netflix keeps giving Chris D’Elia stand-up comedy specials, when his talents aren’t stand-up related. And I certainly don’t know why this bit is highlighted in the trailer, because it wasn’t great then and aged so poorly so quickly. As I wrote even in April: D’Elia, who …
