Comedy Central Presents: Uncensored

When cable television became increasingly popular in American homes many channels were created to target very specific niche programming. In 1991 the Comedy Channel was introduced to the public. Within a few years and several mergers with similar channels Comedy Central was born. They began with some comedy specials taken from HBO and censored with the now famous ‘beeps’ to disguise words not demeaned suitable for family audiences. With an increasing amount of original programming such as ‘South Park’, ‘Politically Incorrect’ and ‘The Daily Show’ Comedy Central became extremely popular growing beyond their original cult classics audiences. With a lot of humor tending towards the more adult in both format and content Comedy Central started to find ways to provide uncensored comedy to their viewers. Now in many markets Comedy Central offers uncensored, ‘beep’-less programming after a certain hour, 1AM here in New York City. There is also another way to get your unedited comedy from Comedy Central, their DVD line. Many of the DVDs they have for their original programming is uncensored. This is the case with the latest DVD, ‘The Best of Comedy Central Presents’. This disc offers standup routines from eight of the most talented and cutting edge comedians on the stand up circuit today.

Most people have seen more than a few episodes of Comedy Central Presents. The format is simple, a comedian, a stage, a microphone and a live audience. As far as Comedy Central is concerned this is the best in programming. It is relatively inexpensive to produce, you can show the episodes in any order you want and people love standup. The series is now entering an amazing 11^th season. The DVD is presented by Comedy Central through their distributor, Paramount Home Entertainment. This is TV-MA all the way. It is not a family program so make sure the kiddies are visiting the Grandparents before you pop it in the DVD player. The eight comedians here represent a wide variety of comedy styles. Some are well known while others may have a smaller fan base. In any case they are all funny. There is almost three hours of comedy here so sit back and enjoy the wild ride.

This comedian is well known for his recurring ‘Back in Black’ segment on ‘The Daily Show’. His humor includes a lot of political and pop culture observations but there is no limit as to what subjects he will take on. He is a professional curmudgeon who projects the persona of a man feed up with the absurdities of modern life. Dressed in his usually black shirt, pants and leather coat Black takes the stage to thunderous applauds. His performance is made up of barely controlled rants. His targets range from Super Bowl to Brittney Spears. As he gets increasingly agitated he comes out with his trademark shaking finger emphasizing all the ridiculous aspects of our culture. In this particular rant his prime focus is the Super Bowl. He talks about how meaningless the commercials are where you have no idea what they are selling. He attacks Spears for an inability to sing and using her body to try to make up for it. For millions of people this is the highlight of their year. For Lewis Black it is a wealth of comedy material.

Many may be familiar with Cook for his recent series of comedy films including ‘Good Luck Chuck’, ‘Employee of the Month’ and ‘Dan in Real Life’. He is a much more energetic comedian than most. On his way on stage he jumps up on the table of a couple watching the show. He paces around the stage often squatting down low or jumping around. His humor is more observational. He takes little things that we all know and twists them around with his unique and often bizarre viewpoint. He is a master of the reducto ad absurdum technique of comedy. He takes something like comedians who ask who the audience is by a round of applauds and applies to other situations like asking a car wreak victim to applaud if there are alright. With his expressive body language he turns himself into everything from a snake at a party to the creature from Alien. He is manic; never letting the pace of his act falter.

Most people think that acts with a ventriloquist died out after the ending of the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’. Dunham brings this particular skill set to the stand up comedy world in a unique and extremely funny way. In his case of dummies are characters that provide him a means to look at our world in a novel way. His first ‘partner’ is a brand new super hero, Melvin. He is not like other super heroes with his small size and huge nose. He can fly and see through things, except silicone with is a problem living in Hollywood. His next character is Peanut. He is a purple creature called a woozle who sports a tuft of green hair and wears only one shoe. He is joined at one point by José Jalapeño who is nothing more than a jalapeño pepper with a sombrero, and a mustache atop a stick. His most famous character is Walter, an old man. Walter hates everything and is not afraid to tell people.

He is one of the kings of deadpan comedy. He often goes into high pitched voices and jokes about his pale skin and being lazy. His humor is down home. He likens the Mafia to the 4H club of his youth. He goes off on topics such as paying for water in a bottle when you can get it free from any faucet. He is sure that this trend started in France with a discussion of just how dumb Americans are.

This is one of the strangest comedians featured here. His style is laid back to the point of being just short of a coma. His act is filled with surreal, non sequitur one line jokes. Many of his jokes take a familiar figure of speech and twist it unexpectedly. He likes escalators because they can never break they can only become stairs. As with many of his jokes you laugh at first but then you realize in a strange way he is right.

Here is another alumnus of ‘The Daily Show’. He is a slight built young man with a twisted view of the world. He looks more like a college student than a stand up comedian. A big part of his act centers on a large pad of paper that he uses to display his punch lines.

Most likely the best known stand up comedian here is Mencia. He is now the host of his own series on Comedy Central, ‘The Mind of Mencia’. It is his goal to laugh at the differences in our society and but doing so show how ridiculous hating people for those difference are. He is not afraid to take on race, religion, politics and sex as part of his act. For fans of his series this is a fantastic look at how Mencia got started. What he hates most are people who are stupid and lazy without a medical condition to explain it. For example he talks about giving kids powered donuts for Halloween. Most people don’t get the joke by Mencia compliments those who do, it’s an anthrax joke. If a white person travels to different parts of the country they are always white. For him as a Hispanic man he is Mexican in California, Cuban in Miami and Puerto Rican in New York. He uses his observations to expose the ridiculous nature of bigotry.

He specializes in one of my favorite forms of humor, self-deprecation. In almost every joke he is the butt of the humor. He has an easy going style that pulls the audience in. he considers things like recommended portion sizes. For a cookie the box states two as the portion size. He admits to eating them a sleeve at a time like feeding a tree into a wood chipper. He is also a very animated comedian widely going around the stage acting out his jokes.

This is the prefect thing for a party with friends. Every body is certain to find a favorite comedian among these eight gifted performers. The DVD is broken up by comedian with chapter stops within each act. The video is full screen while the audio is Dolby Stereo. Both are good but nothing special. This is a comedy disc that will keep you laughing every time you watch it.

Posted 01/19/08