Last Comic Standing - July 12 recap

Through its lengthy auditions and semi finals rounds, the current season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing has given us some hilarious highs, a few painful lows, and a monkey running a lighting board for no apparent reason.  They’ve also given us ten solid, unique stand up comedians that have advanced to the finals to compete for the title, a quarter million bucks, and spot on a Last Comic Standing national tour.  Now, I’m guessing more than just the winner will be appearing on that bill, but the more prizes they can list, the better, right?  Let’s get to it.

Craig Robinson didn’t need to do much to fire up the audibly enthusiastic crowd in the theater, but he did anyway.  The ten finalists were each introduced, and we got right into the show.  I quickly saw that the sage trio of judges was notably absent.  This worried me for a moment, but Natasha Leggero stated on Twitter that it was just a one-week break and they will all be back next week.  I have enjoyed their presence and feedback throughout, and I eagerly look forward to seeing them get a little more critical as the competition moves on.

Laurie Kilmartin led off the night, sticking to the kind of material that got her here: jokes about relationships and her young son.  She discussed how her recent breakup didn’t hurt her as much as learning that her ex cheated on her with someone that couldn’t spell.  “How can you sleep with someone who thinks there’s an A in ‘tomorrow?’” she asked.  She went on with some funny bits about her boy, and the uncomfortable situations that can arise with him.  “They say prison robs you of your dignity,” she stated.  “So does having a three-year-old watch you on the toilet.”  Overall, I thought Laurie was funny, but not the best that she has been.  The audience was really into it, so much that it seemed like their responses occasionally threw off the timing of some of Laurie’s jokes.  However, she was very comfortable and it was a solid set.

Our votes count this week, and our humble host took a moment to remind us.  “It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor or have the IQ of a dead squirrel,” he said.  Okay then!  Felipe Esparza was next with a lackluster set.  He began jumping from one downer of a topic to another: laying in bed feeling like a loser, getting arrested, and the lack of celebration that comes with receiving a GED.  Any of these topics could have been funny, but they didn’t work for me tonight.  His best line of the evening came in a reference to America’s neighbors to the south, and how they could aid in the Iraq war:  “Mexico wants to help but they need a ride over there.”  Felipe has definitely been better before, and not to sound like one of the judges during a rare negative critique, but he just didn’t connect with me tonight.

Roy Wood Jr. followed, explaining how he has failed on this show twice before.  Looking to avoid the hat trick, he began with a bit about his experiences at a sports bar.  This could have worked, aside from an odd anti-swimming tangent.  “You want to make swimming fun to watch, put a gator in the pool,” he implored.  And while I like that idea, I think the shelf life on “swimming as TV viewing” jokes expired about five minutes after Michael Phelps’ last race in the Olympics two years ago.  However, Roy redeemed himself with a funny story about getting ejected from a career day for telling the truth: that we cannot have everyone succeed.  “We need failures in America,” he explained.  “They provide chicken nuggets and lap dances.  I like both of them, those are important services.”  Roy was the third straight comic who wasn’t hilarious, but wasn’t awful, either.  Maybe everyone is going to fall somewhere in the middle this week.

Maronzio Vance made it four for four to this point.  I like him.  He’s very easy going and just fun to listen to, and while a lot of his bits are not classic set-up/punch line, it works for him. He opened with a joke about always wanting to be a super hero, but not being able to afford it.  And the man raised a valid point—Batman did shell out some serious bucks for everything he had working for him.  But he was a billionaire.  Maronzio was not, so he decided that his heroic alter ego would be Pay Attention Man—a character that shows up in situations like when the person in front of you has not noticed that the light has turned green.  The set wasn’t a riot, but it worked.

Rachel Feinstein likes talking about her family, and she excels at using voices.  This much we know.  Tonight, she did both again for her entire set.  She started off discussing her mother, whom she feels wants to be “ethnic” despite being “aggressively white.”  She portrayed her mother attending rap battles, watching the performances and judging them.  Then she talked about her grandmother watching rap videos at home, and getting into it.  This let Rachel use another voice, but all of it felt too similar to the jokes she had already done up to that point tonight.  We’re halfway home tonight and nobody has really impressed.

Finally, we’ve got a leader in the clubhouse, and it’s Tommy Johnagin.  He was the second straight comic to tell jokes about his grandparents, and it worked for him.  He discussed how his mother implored him to visit his grandmother because she doesn’t have much time left.  “Does grandma know that’s how you drum up visitors?” he asked.  He then discussed his grandfather’s recent auto accident: “He hit a beauty salon, which is a building that my grandma was in.”  From here he somehow smoothly transitioned to a bit about an incredibly ugly stripper, one so heinous that he wanted her to take off his glasses instead of her clothes.  Tommy’s delivery was great, and lots of the laughs came from the precise manner in which he nails his punch lines.  He was the best of the night so far.

Jonathan Thymius is an odd dude.  So far that’s been working for me, and he’s been laugh-out-loud funny more that once, but tonight he was just weird.  His best joke was simply the way he wandered onto the stage looking completely bewildered.  Maybe he actually was, because his collection of strange tangents didn’t work for me tonight.  His best joke was probably about the recent diet he’s been on for two months.  “So far, I’ve lost exactly…what…two months,” he said.  He’s better than he was tonight.

This show needed a little shot of energy.  Enter James Adomian.  He started off voicing his opinion on Aesop, feeling that the author of fables was a “judgmental icehole.”  Then followed a long-winded bit about the lesson learned from the tale of the tortoise and the hare, and how Aesop should have been impressed that two animals even put such a race together in the first place.  Hmm.  James then went for the big finish with an impression, a spot-on mimicry of actor Paul Giamatti.  The angle was that even when playing a character like former president John Adams, Giamatti cannot help but let his schlubby persona seep through.  The voice worked, but the impersonation went on a little too long and got almost manic at the end.  Still, this was one of the better showings of the night.

One comic that will clearly never lack confidence, on stage or off, is Mike DeStefano.  He set the tone for his set from his opening line, asking the crowd, “Have you ever noticed that the wrong people have self-esteem?”  His jokes followed in that vein, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it.  I didn’t love the set, and he really lost momentum with his closing bit about advice he gave as a drug counselor.  But people like Mike, and I don’t think he’s going anywhere this week.

This was an up-and-down night, but Myq Kaplan brought it to a humorous close.  Personality-wise, you couldn’t ask for anyone more different to follow Mike DeStefano, and Myq wisely commented on it.  “Like the last performer,” he said, “I, too, am a tough guy.”  If you’ve seen Myq, with his slight build, glasses, and striped, zip-up sweater, you can imagine that joke working.  This led him right into a run on being vegan; something he explained is “like a vegetarian but slightly more annoying.”  One of the benefits of the lifestyle is living a longer life, “Probably because we’re not invited to do anything fun or dangerous.”  Myq’s been funny every time, and this was no exception.

Craig brought all the comics back on and revealed the big news: we knew that our votes determined who would survive.  But next week we lose not one, not two, but three of tonight’s performers.  And after tonight’s show, at least half of the field should be nervous.  I’m sure we’ll get some American Idol style dramatic lighting and musical cues for the eliminations next week, but I do miss the Scooby-Doo mansion.  I miss the outright heads-up challenges.  I even miss Rich Vos ironing his pants.  But this is our show now, so call in your votes so things can get funnier next week.