Stand-up comedy doesn’t have great replay value. Many routines have a short shelf life due to their topical humor, and even routines that rely on universal themes can seem tired after multiple viewings. Even the greatest comedians have material that you probably wouldn’t make a regular habit of watching.
So, you have to wonder a bit about the DVD release of stand-up comedy featuring eight episodes of Comedy Central Presents. The show is still running strong, in its twelfth season, and has filled its half-hour slot with a lot of great comedians. But on this DVD, the newest episode is from season eight. Many of the episodes are from the first couple of seasons and initially aired over ten years ago. This stuff is old.
Now, the reasoning behind this is obvious. The eight comedians featured on the disc are some of the most popular and well-known acts Comedy Central has hosted. But that doesn’t mean we’re not sick of hearing these old jokes. I suppose the major selling point of the disc is that it is “uncensored.” This is utterly pointless.
Hardly any of the material on here would have been censored on its initial television broadcast. Sure, there are a few f-bombs sprinkled across the disc (I’m pretty sure I can count them on one hand) and a few other choice words would have triggered the bleep button originally, but it adds nothing to the routines hearing them. Comedy Central Presents only uses about 20 minutes of a comic’s routine anyway, so it would make little sense to include a great deal of censored material on such a short broadcast.
As for the routines, most are pretty good, but unless you’ve never seen or heard any performance of the particular comic before, it’s probably going to feel like a rerun. Jeff Dunham, Jim Gaffigan, the late Mitch Hedberg, Demetri Martin, and Brian Regan all provide a steady stream of laughs, but there’s better material from every one of these guys out there.
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Article comments
1 - Jordan Richardson
I don't agree with you about stand-up having a short shelf life, however I do agree with the notion that the stand-up comics found on that DVD would most surely be limited in their value.
I think of comics like George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, and to an extent Jerry Seinfeld and I find their work to be as amusing today as it was when it first came to light.
I think it all depends on the talent and the context of the comedy. Today's comics, I think, represent a shift in comedy as a whole and are more geared towards offending an audience than provoking them or making them laugh. Lenny Bruce knew how to provoke people and how to make them laugh at the same time, whereas guys like Dane Cook don't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence.