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In his debut special, Ian Karmel, a veteran comic and writer for late night and award shows, turns his worst joke into one of his best by continually refusing to tell it. It\u2019s a neat trick, characteristic of his unpredictably funny style. Explaining his hesitance, he makes a meal out of the idea that it once killed an audience member who died laughing. It\u2019s one of many distinctive riffs.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a long act-out of a guy putting a bumper sticker on a car that is somehow very funny. He makes a CPAP machine hilarious. Part of his gift resides in the subtext. He can get a laugh from just saying \u201cI like books\u201d because it\u2019s clear that he doesn\u2019t mean it. There\u2019s a finesse to his delivery. He speaks deliberately, never straining. He veers in unexpected directions, even on a sentence level. \u201cI was on tour with my podcast,\u201d he said, pivoting, \u201cwhich is a sentence I sometimes think about saying to someone who fought in World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karmel is committed to skirting free of clich\u00e9, but not in an indulgent, hipster way. There\u2019s nothing ironic about his mustache. His interests (sex, politics, figures of speech) are basic. It\u2019s the way he handles them that stands out. For instance, his take on how worried we should be about our current political moment begins with an observation that many of the countries (Poland, Italy) that make the tastiest dumplings have at one point succumbed to fascism. \u201cSo, the question we need to ask ourselves as Americans is,\u201d he says, pausing for a dramatic beat. \u201cDoes Hot Pockets count?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Many, if not most, stand-up specials are shot over multiple performances, then edited together to make it seem like one integrated whole. Rosebud Baker\u2019s breakout new hour finds meaning in this benign deception, weaving together a performance from when she\u2019s eight months pregnant and another one after she had the baby. Wearing the same color clothes, she cuts between the two even in the middle of a joke. This mixing is never addressed or commented on, but supports a question hovering over the special: Does having a child change you? Baker says it does, but her shots make a different argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been an angry bar clown my entire life,\u201d says Baker, who also writes for Weekend Update on \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d Her hard-bitten, cynical persona provides a nice juxtaposition to how maudlin so much commentary about motherhood can be. In a shot after childbirth, she confesses that she never wanted to be a mother and was surprised by her feelings toward her child: \u201cI guess I thought loving your kid this much was for people whose dreams had gone away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The granddaughter of James Baker, the former secretary of state, Baker has some of her sharpest material on being raised by Texas Republicans. She portrays her family as unsentimental in the extreme, loath to get involved too deeply with the emotional mess of parenting. One wonders what they think about this special.<\/p>\n
Baker makes the point that becoming a mother represents a sort of freedom, because you are forced to lose your old identity and are given room to come up with something new. And yet, her deadpan delivery has not changed. Nor have her jokes. She favors misdirection and metaphors comparing life events to pop culture (a trip to Planned Parenthood is like attending Coachella: \u201cI\u2019ve got a right to be there but it feels like I\u2019ve aged out\u201d). This special goes by quickly, and you come away thinking that people don\u2019t change as much as we think they do and that the difference between a Texas Republican and a New York comic is not as great as you might think.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
(Stream it on Netflix<\/a>)<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for a childless person\u2019s alternative to Rosebud Baker, the acerbic Liza Treyger is here for you. \u201cHave you ever told a mom you\u2019re tired?\u201d she said. \u201cGet a helmet. They\u2019re pissed.\u201d In hard-hitting punchlines, she skewers the judgmental streak of her parent friends who say they\u2019re jealous of her free time. \u201cIf you\u2019re jealous of my shower,\u201d she says, \u201cthen admit your baby sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n Treyger presents herself as weary and slothful, her brain broken by the internet scroll. But there\u2019s an excitement, a danger even, to her onstage persona, as she pushes jokes further than you expect, roasting the crowd. Wearing a pink leather jacket in front of a brick wall covered with roses, she brings a spiky energy to jaded club comedy, covering everything from immigrant parents to how her personality would fare in a labor camp.<\/p>\n (Stream it on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In a 50-minute viral set, with the casual vibe of a someone thinking aloud, Josh Johnson, an incisive emerging stand-up star, does a deep-dive critical read on Kendrick Lamar\u2019s halftime show while satirizing people who do deep-dive critical reads. It\u2019s racked up over 1.5 million views this week. His comic breakdown is alert to language, narrative and ideas, and he rejects critics who saw Lamar as boring or not militant enough. It\u2019s only true, he argues, on the surface. The halftime show, he says, was layered and elusive, meant to be unpacked, not immediately understood, more art than entertainment. Johnson also tells some jokes, but the heart of this magnetic set is a passionate case for what art can do in a philistine world \u2014 and what it can\u2019t. \u201cExpecting Kendrick to rap so good that Trump will be like: I\u2019m going stop,\u201d he said. \u201cBe serious.\u201d<\/p>\nJosh Johnson, \u2018Why Kendrick Lamar\u2019s Super Bowl Halftime Show Is America\u2019<\/h2>\n
Craig Ferguson, \u2018I\u2019m So Happy’<\/h2>\n