Friday, April 1, 2022

April 1, 2022: Stand-Up Studying: Five More Faves

[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to highlight one great routine each from a handful of the many wonderful stand-up comedians doing their thing these days—in case, y’know, you’re (like me) looking to move on from a problematic fave. Add your faves, present and past, in comments!]

On a representative routine from five more great stand-ups:

1)      Horse in a Hospital”: I know John Mulaney’s been in the news a lot recently for less humorous reasons, but to my mind this segment from 2019’s Kid Gorgeous is not just the funniest bit about Trump I heard, but also perhaps the smartest.

2)      Prepping His Son for a Racist Bully”: I’m not sure how much folks paid attention to John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons (2018), but it’s a truly unique combination of stand-up, performance art, and actual history lesson. Highly recommended!

3)      Homeless or Hipster?”: Ali Wong is pretty edgy, at times more so than I tend to go for; but she’s also damn funny, as this bit from Baby Cobra (2016) illustrates quite perfectly.

4)       Civil Rights Update”: Michael Che might be best known as the co-host of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update for a good while now, but he’s a super-talented and topical stand-up comic too, and this bit is one of the best I’ve seen about our current moment.

5)      High-Functioning Autism”: Hannah Gadsby’s been the most-covered stand-up comic of the last few years, and at times (to contrast with what I said about Roy Wood Jr. on Tuesday) I find her a bit preachy. But this segment, from her 2020 special Douglas, is not only quite funny but very thoughtful about autism without being the slightest bit pedantic, and one more great example of contemporary comedy.

March Recap this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Takes on these comics and/or other faves you’d share?

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