Episode 2: June 18, 2006

The storied romance between my affection for the comic genius of Dane Cook and his new HBO reality mini-series Tourgasm can be summed up simply as a tale of mismanaged expectations. At first my interest was piqued by the thought of getting an inside look at comedy on the road combined with enough Dane Cook to hold me over until he releases another mega-huge comedy album.

I found that I shared these interest with a few friends, so we all gathered an huddled around the television late last Sunday evening to behold the next great work of our favorite comic. What was delivered unto us was something — well — disappointing, to say the least. Instead of the comic stylings of Mr. Cook, we were treated to vicious bickering between relative unknowns Robert Kelly and Jay Davis that ended with one person (mind you, a grown man) running off in tears. We all were very close to the realization that this show was going to be another turd in a long line of reality TV fecal matter, but we did not completely abandon hope. Rather than cancel HBO and go back to watching the World Cup, we decided to give Dane one more shot at the whole reality TV thing, and we were duly rewarded for our patronage earlier this evening.

With show number one in the bag (or the toilet, depending on how you look at things) the four men of the Tourgasm extravaganza set forth to conquer the midwest with a new sense of disunity. But instead of bickering away at each other in episode 2, Robert Kelly and Jay Davis decided to take a little time off to allow Gary Gulman to insert his own brand of "dramatic effect". With his ability to nonchalantly disregard all time requirements, a la getting to breakfast on time, Gulman ignites what could be the equivalent to an exchange of gun fire with the tour's manager. But as was the case in the first episode, Dane swoops in to right all of the wrongs and heal most of the wounds. This is where this show becomes more of a vanity project than a reality series, but hopefully that is just Dane being Dane.