OK, so we're in Las Vegas to whittle the first group of 438 semi-finalists down to a more manageable 10. Five of them will come from tonight's show, the other four will be chosen next week during another two hour, eighteen Applebee's commercial episode.
Host Bill Bellamy describes tonight's program as "an international battle like we've never seen before" which, for some reason, makes me think of "Street Fighter II". I'm pretty sure Chun Li is more entertaining than some of these people, with or without the pigtails. Bill Bell comes onstage with a group of feather-and-wing wearing dancers and I'm immediately disappointed that he's not rocking the same costume. He is, however, wearing a jacket made of aluminum foil.
He launches into some jokes about Joan Rivers being old and Barry Manilow having plastic surgery and it has to be hard for the host to realize that he couldn't make it on his own show.
Tonight's judges are perpetually sunglassed Richard "Law Hearts Order" Belzer (who gets a standing ovation, probably for not coughing a lung out onto the audience) and Steve "I Was Never Invited to Pose on the DVD Box" Shirripa from The Sopranos.
On to the comedy. First up is New York's own Adam Hunter who immediately tells the camera that he didn't come here to lose, he came to win. He apparently understands opposites. In his 3 minute set, he covers the election, President Harry Potter, Asian men in porno films, peace in the Middle East, Muslim Mardi Gras, homeless people, telling his family he was gay just to see what would happen, therapy, and bad credit. Wow. This was like the comedy version of "We Didn't Start the Fire". Richard and Steve both liked him and I have to agree. By the end of the show, I realized he was the best of the night.
Next is Phil Palisoul, he of the bald head and unfortunate red soul patch. He scratches his face non-stop and hitches his set to the idea of having an international "I'm a jackass symbol" that he makes above his head. He does several callbacks to the symbol and none of them work any better than when he introduced it. He did at one point produce a coin purse from his pocket and I'm not sure that was really a prop. He concluded by telling the crowd they were "dynamite" and he prolly should've been making the symbol then.
Enter Jeff Dye and his fluorescent yellow shirt. His first joke doesn't work so he tells the crowd "that's a joke". He launches into a bit about taking ecstasy at the gym and is, again, met by silence. His entire set is about the gym, which is maybe a bit risky. He's not recording a CD where he needs 3:40 to fill up track four so they can call it "Gym Shorts" on the liner notes.
Things pick up when he does a breathy impression of a woman working out in shorts that say JUICY across the arse. Perhaps because he turned their attention to his own, um, back patio, all the women stand up to clap for him, even though most of them are older than Bill Bellamy's Wayne Newton jokes.
The first chick of the night is Erin Foley, who's wearing an unfortunate denim on denim outfit, a look that worked briefly during Smokey & the Bandit but not before and never since. She equates the acid in orange juice with the acid that guy from the Widespread show tried to sell you and talks about hallucinating during a baby shower. It's not going well so far. She also covers the ingredient list on a bag of carrots, book clubs where they only read the dictionary, and really doesn't get a reaction until she does an impression of herself as a sideline reporter at a football game. I'm disappointed... I really wanted her to be stellar.
Dan Naturman is next. I can't focus on his first bit because he's too busy pronouncing the word "in-ter-net" and I'm thrown by the additional emphasis on the middle syllable. He does coax a laugh out of me when he skewers prescription drug commercials that say "ask your doctor about Prevacid". To that, he says "He's the doctor. Shouldn't he already know about it?" which I thought was clever. Unfortunately, the rest of the time he's just so damn loud I kind of think he should be trying to sell me a Kia.
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Comments (3)
I've concluded the criteria for making it to the finals on this show is if the contestant DIDN'T make me laugh.
The only two that I found remotely amusing were Paul the Bald Guy (who you, GS, didn't enjoy) and Erin Jackson...and they both got kicked to the curb.
I guess I'll just skip the show and read your reviews for the rest of the season. You're certainly funnier than Ron G.
1 of 3 | Posted by cattyfan | Posted on July 3, 2008 8:49 AM
My DH and I were like "seriously, WTF?" when they named Ron G. and God's Pottery. The two LAMEST acts in the history of mankind make the show? Ron G. was actually more annoying than GP, which is tough to do. There were much better acts on the show than those two.
I think I'm off this ridonkulous show -- but I'll still read your recaps to see how you try to encapsulate the humor!
2 of 3 | Posted by zbird | Posted on July 3, 2008 7:58 PM
What a joke, indeed!
I hope those were the last comics standing!
I still have a bad taste in my mouth!
3 of 3 | Posted by detinha | Posted on July 11, 2008 6:26 AM