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In his debut special, Ian Karmel, a veteran comic and writer for late night and award shows, turns his worst joke into one of his best by continually refusing to tell it. It’s a neat trick, characteristic of his unpredictably funny style. Explaining his hesitance, he makes a meal out of the idea that it once killed an audience member who died laughing. It’s one of many distinctive riffs.
There’s a long act-out of a guy putting a bumper sticker on a car that is somehow very funny. He makes a CPAP machine hilarious. Part of his gift resides in the subtext. He can get a laugh from just saying “I like books” because it’s clear that he doesn’t mean it. There’s a finesse to his delivery. He speaks deliberately, never straining. He veers in unexpected directions, even on a sentence level. “I was on tour with my podcast,” he said, pivoting, “which is a sentence I sometimes think about saying to someone who fought in World War II.”
Karmel is committed to skirting free of cliché, but not in an indulgent, hipster way. There’s nothing ironic about his mustache. His interests (sex, politics, figures of speech) are basic. It’s the way he handles them that stands out. For instance, his take on how worried we should be about our current political moment begins with an observation that many of the countries (Poland, Italy) that make the tastiest dumplings have at one point succumbed to fascism. “So, the question we need to ask ourselves as Americans is,” he says, pausing for a dramatic beat. “Does Hot Pockets count?
Many, if not most, stand-up specials are shot over multiple performances, then edited together to make it seem like one integrated whole. Rosebud Baker’s breakout new hour finds meaning in this benign deception, weaving together a performance from when she’s eight months pregnant and another one after she had the baby. Wearing the same color clothes, she cuts between the two even in the middle of a joke. This mixing is never addressed or commented on, but supports a question hovering over the special: Does having a child change you? Baker says it does, but her shots make a different argument.
Liza Treyger presents herself as weary and slothful, her brain broken by the internet scroll. But there’s an excitement, a danger even, to her onstage persona, as she pushes jokes further than you expect, roasting the crowd. Wearing a pink leather jacket in front of a brick wall covered with roses, she brings a spiky energy to jaded club comedy, covering everything from immigrant parents to how her personality would fare in a labor camp.
Josh Johnson, an incisive emerging stand-up star, does a deep-dive critical read on Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show while satirizing people who do deep-dive critical reads. It’s racked up over 1.5 million views this week. His comic breakdown is alert to language, narrative and ideas, and he rejects critics who saw Lamar as boring or not militant enough. It’s only true, he argues, on the surface. The halftime show, he says, was layered and elusive, meant to be unpacked, not immediately understood, more art than entertainment.
Craig Ferguson, in his 60s, wearing a loosefitting suit and bright Adidas shoes, talks about his old hosting days, his robot sidekick, the time he had to apologize to all of Australia and more. His jokes cover overly familiar territory (adjusting to woke times, Covid, Meghan and Harry), but his storytelling is better than his takes. His appeal is his light touch, his winning wit, the playfulness. “Do you know that Elon Musk has 28 children?” he says, flashing a mischievous grin. He knows few believe him, and that’s the way he likes it.
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