Last Comic Standing: Two Down…

Tonight’s episode of Last Comic Standing begins by introducing all twelve of this season’s finalists. In case you have somehow forgotten their names or faces, here’s Marcus doing a timely Gilbert Gottfried impression! Iliza wears another V-neck t-shirt! God’s Pottery does something completely unentertaining and borderline creepy! Tonight, they’ll be put through their first of a series of challenges and by the time the last NBC Olympics promo rolls, only ten comics will remain.

As Good Charlotte’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” plays, the contestants are crammed into the official LCS short bus. Some of them are sitting in the aisles and I’m pretty sure that can’t be up to code. They arrive at the Casa de Comedy, the Cribs-worthy house they’ll be living in until they eventually get booted back to their un-airconditioned studio apartments.

Bill Bellamy is there to greet them, wearing an pink outfit that makes him look like an ambulatory Pepto Bismol bottle. Once inside, the God’s Pottery guys tear through the house and race to claim the pink girly bedroom, which is HILARIOUS because THEY ARE BOYS AND THEY WANT TO SLEEP IN THE FRILLY ROOM! How my sides ache from laughter! Screw calling a bunk bed… I’d immediately loot the shit out of that house, shoving decorative accents and pop art into my messenger bag with the quickness.

The next montage is of Esther and her laugh and how it’s shrill enough to trigger mudslides, alter weather patterns, disorient entire flocks of birds, and generally make everyone wish that Casa de Comedy had a crawlspace that they could cram her in.

Next, we have the Last Comic Calendar shoot, which is one of those activities that is dripping with awesomesauce if you’re a participant but if you have to sit at home watching, it’s really not that entertaining. It’s like seeing a video of someone playing Skee ball.

The premise is that there are 12 months and 12 comics and that means that everyone should put on a costume and they’ll take pictures and make a calendar that may or may not be purchased by the mothers of the participants. Doesn’t that sound FUN! Marcus comes out of the dressing room first in a tattered Wonder Woman costume and it goes downhill from there. Suffice it to say that I could’ve lived a full and happy life without ever seen Sean Cullen shirtless. Actually, several of the guys chose to disguise themselves by taking their shirts off. God’s Pottery did something Biblical, Jeff Dye wore a bib and a diaper, Iliza Shlesinger dressed as a lesbian, Adam Hunter was a hippie, hooray, hooray hooray. That’s ten minutes I would like to have back.

The next morning, they walk into the kitchen to find 12 raw eggs in 12 different glasses. Either they have the world’s lamest poltergeist or it’s some kind of clue. Esther figures it out, that they have to train like Rocky or something although if I’d been the producer, I would’ve hung 12 sides of beef from the ceiling. They’re driven to a boxing ring “in the middle of nowhere” where Bill Bellamy–dressed as either a referee or Colonel Sanders–tells them they’re about to begin their first challenge, Last Comic Smackdown. “Instead of throwing punches, you’ll be throwing punchlines,” he says, beaming that it only took him four days to write that joke. There will be three rounds of competition, with round one being Yo Mama jokes. Cue the “Eye of the Tiger” and the training montage…

The judges for the “Yo Mama Speed Round” are Jamie “A Number of Failed Sitcoms” Kennedy and Rich “Football Announcer Guy” Eisen. Only four comics will advance from the following matchups:

Louis Ramey vs. Jeff Dye: The audience digs it when Jeff says “Yo mama is so old she was the waitress at the Last Supper”, but that joke is so old, it was used to translate the Rosetta Stone.

Ron G vs. God’s Pottery: Ron is taking this way too seriously. He really wants to punch them both in the face. God’s Pottery made everything positive; as an opener they said “Your mother is so pretty, we were just talking about how we thought she could be a model”. Actually, they were pretty entertaining, compared with Ron who just stood in the corner looking surly and wondering which one of them he would stab first.

Adam Hunter vs. Marcus: Adam’s money shot- “Yo mama is so old she went to high school with John McCain”. Yes, I believe that would’ve been Nazareth High, class of 02. Like, 0002 (A.D.)

Jim Tavare vs. Iliza Shlesinger: It’s nice that they placed an accent over the “e” in Tavare on the ring girl’s sign, but too bad no one can agree on how to pronounce it. Sometimes it’s Ta-VAR-aye, sometimes TAV-ah-ray. Either way, I was surprised to see that he had a giant tattoo on his arm, one that looked like the kind of crest you see stitched on a polo shirt.

Papa CJ vs. Paul Foot: Color me surprised that CJ manages to do a Hindu joke.

Esther Ku vs. Sean Cullen: Sean lowers the boom when he said that Esther’s mom is so old, when she was in the shower, she raised her breast and a Pilgrim fell out. Jamie Kennedy’s face melted.

The four winners were Adam Hunter, Jim Tavare, Sean Cullen, and God’s Pottery. The latter two, I’m shocked to say, were by far the best.

We move on to round two, where they have to snap each other with lines that begin “You’re such a hack…”

In his interview, Adam Hunter says that he’s not afraid to take on God’s Pottery, because they’re just characters. He said it’s like going up against Borat. I thought A-Hunt was the better comic but somehow GP won. Craptastic.

Sean Cullen vs. Jim Tavare: Sean throws a lot of words around–trying to eat up time, I guess–but they don’t make any sense. Jim throws down a “You’re such a hack, you make Carrot Top seem fresh”, a line so brilliant I’d like to embroider it on a pillow. Or on my back. Obviously, Jim wins.

For the final matchup, J-Tav vs. G-Pot, it’s the “Anything Goes” round. One of the pieces of pottery tells Jim he’s “dumber than a ding dong in a ho ho factory” while the other taunts him with the Revolutionary War. Jim responds by insulting their lineage and their intelligence, all while using that delightful accent. He also seems to have a devil tattooed on his other arm. Symbolism is neat.

Jim is the winner which means that no matter what he cannot be eliminated this week. Everyone is loaded back onto the over-capacity bus and taken to a graveyard, because nothing is more chuckleworthy than sitting on concrete slabs atop decomposing corpses. Bill tells them that they’re in the cemetery because “either you kill or you die onstage” so he thought it would be a great idea to do the voting there. It may not seem as swell to the family of the late Mrs. Ida Grogan whose grave they’re all dancing on.

They’re directed to the mausoleum and told to vote for someone they’d like to vote off, someone they think they are funnier than. To their surprise–but not to anyone who has ever watched any reality show–the footage is then immediately shown to the group. Jim, Louis, Adam, Iliza, God’s Pottery, and Marcus all vote Esther. Paul and Papa CJ both want to boot Iliza. Sean and Jeff call each other out, Ron shoots hates votes God’s Pottery (of course), and finally, Esther casts her lot for Louis.

Since Esther got the most votes, she gets to choose the comics she’ll face off against. Of the three performers in that show, two will be eliminated and the winner gets to stay at Casa de Comedy for another week, using a washing machine that works and eating dairy products that haven’t expired. Esther selects God’s Pottery and–BURN!–Iliza.

In their taped interviews, Esther calls Iliza “lame and judgemental” while Iliza just destroys Esther, finishing her by saying that “she thinks in purple hearts and rainbows and anime”. Confidental to Iliza: I love you.

On to the head to head to head (and additional head for the other Pottery Guy) showdown. Esther takes the stage first, dressed like a violent collision between Get In Shape Girl and Suzy Wong. She repeats her opener from the semi-final set and then rolls out her usual Asian-flavored shtick. She talks about how Asian girls go out with everyone but Asian guys, references chopsticks, gets in a dig about Mexicans taking Americans’ jobs (which got a roar from the LA crowd) but other than that one joke, the biggest ovation for her was when she walked off the stage.

God’s Pottery is (are?) next. Half of the audience seems to dig it but the other half looks confused because obviously they thought they came to see comedians, not spend the evening at Vacation Bible School. They do get props for getting the majority of the crowd to repeatedly yell “I love Jesus more than anyone does!”.

If given a choice, I would rather attend an actual mass than one of their shows because at least at St. Leo’s we get a mouthful of wine..two if the blind nun is the one holding the chalice.

Iliza and her V-neck tee are batting cleanup. She was brilliant, describing her legs as “deer haunches”, and doing a bit about falling into a table corner “like a dinosaur being hit by a rock”. I’m still not a fan of that nasal-girl character voice she does, but the part about men and women doing things to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex (Women try to match their bra and panties “because what man isn’t turned on by color coordination?” and men spray cologne around their crotch) rocked everyone’s face off. My only criticism of her–and criticism may be too strong a word–is that I’d probably like her more if I’d never seen Dane Cook.

The audience votes with handheld devices borrowed from the set of America’s Funniest Home videos. Will the winner be God’s Pottery, Esther Ku, or Dog Takes the Birthday Cake? God’s Pottery gets thy holy boot first, with the fewest number of votes. And tonight’s victor, with 68% of the vote, is ILIZA SHLESINGER! Awesome. And kudos to The Ku for ridding the show of both herself and God’s Pottery, three of the most irritating performers this side of Andy Dick. If only there was a way that one of them could’ve smothered Ron G on the way out.

Until next week, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.