Originally Posted by Timothy Finn
You could say that Dane Cook has put to rest rumors or charges that he steals other comedians' material. But that's because not too many comedians would want to take ownership of the material he shared with about 8,000 people in the Sprint Center on Saturday.
Oh, people laughed all night at what he said. But every day people line up and wait an hour to sit down and eat at chain restaurants. That doesn't mean the food is good. People laugh at Dane Cook's material. That means he's funny, I guess, but it doesn't mean he's clever, witty, incisive, smart, analytical or comedic. It just means he says stuff that gets laughs.
He started his Sprint Center show by giving himself a hero's welcome, entering the area like some prize fighter or gladiator, high-fiving fans along the way. After taking the stage in the middle of the arena, he thanked the crowd for its reception and thanked the fans for all the high fives. Then he took some sanitizer out of his pocket and washed his hands. Har-har.
That was joke No. 1. It didn't go downhill or uphill from there, it just stayed right there, at that same rudimentary level where bits are joined by dialogue and most of it has no point except to deliver the shock of the bit.
An example: He took on the word "reeruned." His jumpoff point was a random reference to a news story about a brain procedure that can improve the language skills of people who are -- and here was his point: why say stuff like "mentally challenged," etc. when there already was a word.
Now, there was room for a bit on the origin of a word and how a word becomes a pejorative and then an objectionable term. George Carlin was brilliant at working language and the ironies and paradoxes of words into comic gold.
But Cook doesn't have that kind of brain. Instead, he went low road. First he played with the word and the prefix "re" and "do you start off tarded and get tarded again?" Eighth grade humor. Beavis & Butthead all over again.
Then he made his larger point, which was more patently stupid than it was patently offensive. And it's really not worth repeating. But to make the point I will: He said he objects to that brain procedure because sometimes the voice is the only way you can tell is someone is ... pick your term. Then he put on this long silly skit to prove his point. And people laughed. But there was nothing to "get" about the entire bit. It was just Dane Cook making people giggle about this use of the word reerun.
He did another bit on masturbation and the, er, volume of ejaculate. That was the point, nothing else. Just more juvenilia. Again, more giggles and some forced and nervous laughter. He spent several minutes describing in great detail the time he dropped his cell phone in the toilet -- no point, no punchline, just an excuse to talk about his genitals and say he got urine in his eye.
And what was that ridiculous bit about the guy with the robo-leg getting chased by a killer in the woods and why it'd be better to have a Nerf prosthetic leg? Huh?
He went on forever with this bit about how differently men and women play what he called the "what would you do if ..." game. The bit presumes everyone plays this game; I had no idea what he was talking about. It was all so contrived. He ends up playing the game with a male friend and they end up hypothesizing about sexual abuse at a child in a daycare center. Really. It was absurd and stupid, just a rambling narrative with mentions of genitals and oral sex. Har-har. He said erection. Everybody laugh.
He used his encore to relate a story that may or may not be true. It's hard to tell with him sometimes. He talked about all the negative press and reaction he gets and about going on-line for the first time to read a lot of it.
He also talked about his parents' dying of cancer within nine months of each other. Then he read an e-mail he received from one of his haters (and this is all paraphrased): "Your parents died to get away from your bad comedy."
Sometime later, he said, he got another e-mail from the same person: "My dad is dying from a brain tumor. I'm sorry I said what I did. I can relate to you now." After feigning some sympathy, Cook said he responed: "Your dad is dying to get away from your (bleeping-bleeping bleep). Hah hah. I win."
Yeah, Dane Cook always wins, when you consider the price of his tickets and the size of his crowd. But when you consider the value of his material? His fans are laughing, true, but the joke may be on them.
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