There is a reason that so many famous and successful comedians began their careers with a membership in an improvisational comedy troupe. Such a background hones their comic abilities more than any other representation of the art of comedy. If you require some proof of this hypothesis just take a look at the comedians that command incredible salaries. You will find in their early years that they belonged to such ‘improv’ groups as ‘Second City’ or ‘The Groundlings’. One other highly innovative group is ‘The Upright Citizen’s Brigade’. This Chicago based troupe has been around since 1990 and over the years has had its own television series, several DVDs and more recently had a very popular stage show. The show known by the dubious name of ‘Asssscat’ was the object of a special on the Bravo cable network and is now available on DVD distributed by Shout Factory. The incarnation of the troupe for this special consisted of Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh. Each one is a brilliant comedian in his or her own right and together they manage to come up with bright and witty humor. The name of the group comes from their most famous group of skits. These bits revolved around a secret group, the Brigade that possessed unlimited resources and monitored the chaos in the world. It was strange and for many an acquired taste. This troupe is responsible for one of the longest running improvisation acts ever.

Without a doubt the most well know member of the group is Poehler. Now that Tina Fey has moved on from Saturday Night Live Poehler is the reigning queen of the show. She is a versatile woman that knows how to push comedy to its limits. Besser has made numerous appearances on many of the most popular television series around. The same pretty much hold true for Roberts and Walsh. You may not be that familiar with their names but you will recognize them from their many film and television appearances. This show differs a lot in its format from the more stylized television series that bore the name of the group. It begins with a few suggestions from the audience for the usual improvisational group openings; places, situations and characters. Then a guest comedian would perform a monologue for the audience. This does give the troupe a little bit of time to come up with a game plan for the ensuing madness. As with most improvisational groups there are some canned building block gags. This allows them to hone their material in rehearsals but still present novel material for the audience. Each time they take the stage they have this bag of tricks at their command. The difference from night to night is how those building blocks are bound together. Of course there are obviously some true off the cuff moments. Many of them can even take the troupe members by surprise. The talent in this group is how they keep up with each other and go with the flow.

The disc opens with a crowd of people waiting to enter the venue. They are all chanting for ‘Asssscats’. Backstage Matt Besser notes to the camera that it will be a miracle if they pull this off. Naturally this is not there first time doing this act so this is more theatrical rhetoric than anything else. The four members take the stage. It is not much of a stage; small in size and decorated only with four chairs on floor level. The audience is set only a foot or two from the perimeter giving immediacy to the performance. They are also on three sides of the stage so the members take their initial bows in all directions. Bessel starts out by addressing the camera calling the viewers at home dumb. He shouts insults and curse words at them; yes, this is an uncensored performance. They pull the audience into the action right from the start. They ask by a show of hands who has seen the show before. They then choose one guy from the front row to stand up and explain the show to the ‘retarded’ viewers at home. The first guest monologist is Thomas Lennon best know for his role as the hot pants wearing Lieutenant Jim Dangle on ‘Reno 911’. Also brought to the stage is Andrew Daly and former SNL cast member Horatio Sanz who was one of the founding members of UCB. They then take the suggestions from the audience and Daly rifts on it in his monologue. The first topic is medical marijuana. He admits that he does not do well on pot; that he has what he calls day terrors. He screams incessantly while high. This leads into the first skit with the same subject. Besser plays a man who goes to a doctor, played by Poehler, looking for some medical pot. She asks his symptoms and the first one he mentions is he is bored all the time. He also has a Pink Floyd album that doesn’t make sense to him. Walsh then taps Poehler on the shoulder and takes her place as the doctor. This is literally tag team comedy. Daly returns to the stage with another comedian and the topic has morphed into a bit about crack. Members of the group just drift in and out of the scene often with only a line or two to inject in the skit. Later on they drift into a skit about a man offering a joint to his friend. He warns him that most of the joint is like ten Mardi gras but the end of it is like Hitler’s birthday. They then cut too two hours later where the friend is experiencing the Mardi gras as the others act it out. Then suddenly everyone is speaking with a German accent. This is pretty much how the whole show goes. Bits flow from one to the other frequently seamlessly. Comedians tag each other out and replace them keeping the comedy in a state of constant flux.

Besides the performance Shout Factory has assembled several interesting extras for the DVD release.