Gerry Dee GONE!

They broke the bad news to him and he wept and choked out some sort of statement about the folks back home. The first contestant to weep this season.

Perhaps the only folks who should actually be weeping are those who were unfortunate enough to catch this most recent episode.

Or the weepers might be the folks who were sprinkled throughout the broadcast as the Top Ten Best of the Worst– a cheap and lame collection of short clips of some of the people who auditioned but didn’t make it to Hollywood. Fleeting clips of their audition sets were shown before going to breaks. The poor bastards weren’t even afforded the courtesy of having their names superimposed over the footage of their national network primetime humiliation. It was the least the producers could have done. These comics, some of them actual pros we’re certain, did, after all, hang it out over the edge and give it a shot. Sure, some of them were certifiably mad, but that’s no reason to deprive them of their identities.

This episode also featured guest performances by Kathleen Madigan, “International Man of Comedy” Greg Proops (Do not adjust your television set, that is how Bellamy Bill introduced him!) and Gilbert Gottfried.

Madigan seemed rushed. It was as if someone told her to knock out 45 seconds from her set just before showtime and she refused– opting instead to cram the entire planned set into her shrunken allotment. Either that, or she has changed her style recently and she is no longer waiting for the laugh. Whatever happened, she was speedy and not at all like we recall her. And the New Energetic Kathleen is not as enjoyable as the Slow Sarcastic Kathleen.

Greg Proops? Sorry. Nothing unexpected here. What would happen if there were a “black guy in the White House?” The ol’ “Bored Woman Having Sex” impression? The standard “All Dumb People Have Southern Accents” crutch? (This is the comedian constantly held up as the gold standard at Montreal year in and year out?) Perhaps the constraints of primetime network television resulted in a bland, predictable performance.

We assumed the producers went over the comics’ sets before they taped shows like this. If so, then why were both of the abovementioned guest sets allowed to mock Southerners extensively when one of the finalists (Reep) was a Southerner? Wouldn’t that be viewed as, at the very least, impolite? Unfair, maybe? They’re the contestants after all. They are the reason all of us– Bellamy Bill, the viewing audience, the studio audience, SHECKYmagazine– were present tonight. (And, technically, Crawford is a Southerner as well!) The entire episode had all the organization of a bar brawl. It seemed as though no one had any idea of who was supposed to do what next.

And why wouldn’t they have alerted Crawford that his set would be bleeped every time he mentioned Sprint? Here he is, doing his shot for the championship, and he’s bleeped no fewer than eight times!

And Gilbert Gottfried?!?!?

Calista Flockhart? Couldn’t he update that to Nicole Richie? “Witness?” We aren’t scrupulous about dropping dated bits– we believe that jokes can and should have a lengthy shelf life, especially bits that form part of a larger 60-minute set at a club. But an effort should be made to at least update the material! Especially if you’re only called upon to do four or five minutes, like Gottfried was this evening. Surely a five-minute set can be crafted that doesn’t contain 90 seconds that rely on a film that was released 22 years ago.

This episode was a disappointment as a comedy show. And as a reality show. And as a competition.

Reep’s set was coherent, cohesive, confident– it was essentially an audition. It was a monologue that had a theme, from start to finish. It was economical, it told a story or two and it involved physical humor. It was the highlight of the show. (It was odd that Reep’s set– turning heavily on accounts of his father’s snoring– could have very nearly been undermined by one of the Best of the Worst clips which showed a comic doing an extremely lame snoring bit. Perhaps the producers should look out for the contestants’ interests a little more carefully.)

And Reep’s set should hold up against Lavell’s set.

Crawford’s was not a championship set. He was all over the map, he seemed to have run out of material. He went right to food, but then he went into a lengthy bit about bad customer service that was strained and that saw him bleeped multiple times. It’s hard to capture the fancy of the home viewers with all that bleeping going on. Combined with the weakness of the material, it would be a shocker if he were to be the one who garners the majority of votes when they convene onstage a week from tonight.

What the hell was that “King of the One-Liners” competition thing at the start of the show?!? They lined up the final three comics, set a giant clock behind them at 1:30 while Belllamy Bill burbled some sort of rules and then the three in turn did one-liners. Or at least they were supposed to. By the time the whole thing degenerated into a confused mess, Crawford was doing an extended three- or four-line gag and Dee was good-naturedly yelling that Crawford was cheating. Two leggy babes in shimmering dresses came out and handed a bowling trophy to Crawford after Bellamy Bill hastily declared him the winner, based on audience response. No mention was made of Henny Youngman, so far as we could tell.

Rich Vos, Alonzo Bodden, Dane Cook, Tammy Pescatelli, Chris Porter, Todd Glass, Doug Benson, Roz and Jeffery Ross will be on the roast of the finalists, to be broadcast as part of next week’s finale.

No mention was made of the online component of LCS, so we assume that the “winner” will not be performing on the finale show. (Unless of course, mention was made in the hourlong repeat of last week’s episode that preceded the airing of tonight’s episode. We missed it.)

Early on in the process, The Male Half predicted that Reep might take it. We’ll see in a week whether he is correct.