Last Comic Standing: Season Six!

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on May 23rd, 2008

So, we’re in Kansas City, and we’re on Central Daylight Time. And we’ve got an 8 PM show. So, there’s no way we’re going to be able to watch the show in real time.

So… we go to the Goodwill on Shawnee Mission Parkway and buy a big old clunky JVC VCR and hook it up to our hotel TV.

We call that dedication, people.

We come home after our show and we watch the entire, bizarre, revolting, emotional roller coaster. There are maybe eight entertaining minutes out of the ninety that were broadcast. If a comedy club presented that kind of ratio of entertaining to gut-churning, folks would be walking out.

Let’s remind folks of who made it into the final ten:

God’s Pottery
Adam Hunter
Jeff Dye
Ron G
Paul Foot
Iliza Shlesinger
Marcus
Jim Tavaré
Esther Ku
Louis Ramey
Sean Cullen
Papa C.J.

We remind you because some of our compadres out there– some other websites who are purportedly looking out for your comedy interests– are acting like they don’t know who makes it “into the house,” even though we posted the info on March 31. That’s seven weeks ago. Do they not trust our sources?

Last Comic Driving? Just when you thought they couldn’t come up with something more uncomfortable, something more demeaning, something more horribly contrived than Comics Unleashed— Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Last Comic Driving!

Why is it called Last Comic Driving? The comic… isn’t… DRIVING!

We gotta figure Andrew Norelli is accustomed to headlining. Elsewise, how could he be so comfortable being driven around while some hot babe is ignoring everything he says. (A feature act would be more comfortable actually driving around and delivering material… and having his every word ignored.)

New York. The “celebrity talent scouts” were Richard Belzer and Steven Schirripa. (Full disclosure: We’re working for Schirripa July 7-13 at the Riviera Comedy Club in Vegas, so we thought his work in this episode was absolutely spectacular! He might be the most insightful, compassionate and thought-provoking celebrity talent scout this show has ever had! Belzer? Not so much.)

Where was the footage of the “secret auditions” that we know were conducted around the country, in comedy clubs like the Atlanta Punchline? (We know that Josh Sneed won that particular showcase, but he was only shown in the background, for a fleeting second or two, over Bellamy’s shoulder, during the Gotham segment.) What gives? Why were we (The Male Half included) forced to fill out that voluminous release form if we weren’t going to at least be part of a snappily-produced package that showed Bellamy jetting all over North America, seeking the best and the brightest? Hell, it took some of us longer to sign the release than it did to do our sets!

What became of Aparna Nancherla? We reported back on February 8 that she earned red envelope. Come May 22 and we don’t even see her face in the background. Perhaps we didn’t scour the video tape well enough. Hey, she got a red envelope– we shouldn’t have to analyze the video like a CIA operative inspecting satellite images in order to see her. If she was good enough back in February, she should be good enough in May.

Why? So many WHY’s!

For instance: Why was so much emphasis placed on some gal who wears a whole lot of different outfits (Whoo!) when there were so many comics (Josh Sneed, Costaki Economopoulos, Jon Fisch) who– we guarantee— were perfectly capable of delivering solid, funny sets?

Why give all this play, shoot all this footage, lash together all these packages on people who just can’t possibly deliver when there are four or five or six comics who can? (We know they were there– we saw them standing in the background at the end of the evening set at Gotham!) It’s called Last Comic Standing and we’re mystified as to why costume changes and banana suits and Sith lords and strippers are given priority over comics who can make people convulse with a well-turned phrase, a punchline, a joke.

Esther Ku. She may well be a fine comedian. Some day. For now, she’s capable of delivering a four- or five-minute set at a showcase. It’s rather depressing. She is an amateur. If she wins– And, let’s face it, she’s made it to Vegas and to the Final Twelve, so there is every possibility that she might win– she will be perfectly capable of doing absolutely nothing in the way of standup comedy. Four minutes of material is hardly adequate for doing battle with a crowd of 40 or 400 or 4,000. What can come of her elevation to Last… Comic… Standing?

Tempe. We reported that Marcus, Phil Palisoul and Adam Hunter got the red envelope. We also reported that Alycia Cooper and Bryan Kellen got one, too. Cooper was unceremoniously “disappeared.” Perhaps she refused to sign the release. Kellen got a good amount of face time. But he was not depicted as victorious.

Marcus. We have nothing against impressionists. Impressionists are perfect cogs in the wheels of many a sketch TV show. They often carry those shows. But this is a standup show. We do have a beef with impressionists who have no jokes to go along with the mimicry. Perhaps his jokes were stripped out by the producers. If so, they have played a cruel joke on the man.

Fearne Cotton. The fabric of our lives? We don’t think so. She is a waste. An unnecessary bauble. A British accent and little more.

If we re-run the video tape and catch anything else, we’ll let you know. The show was so bad, we are actually considering taking the VCR back to the Goodwill and getting $7.98 store credit back. But that would get us very bad thrift store karma. And you don’t want that.

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