Jerrod Carmichael: 8

My wife and I have a 5-minute rule on comedians. I have turned off Fred Armisan. Jerrod is hilarious, but in a twisted way.

I did not laugh once. The whole hour. Yet he is good. I would go as far as compare him to George Carlin. If he is that good before 30, maybe he will go far beyond what Carlin did two decades later. I don't know. I will have to see it. But now, he is good. The tempo is slower, but his public is less used to his kind of thoughts. And Jerrod is good.

Probably people misunderstand him simply because of a racist bias. You probably know the statement "these people all look the same." He is not Eddie Murphy. He is not Chris Rock. And he does not even try to be Eddie or Chris.

And surely he is hard to grasp because George Carlin and Lenny Bruce were products of the 1970s. And Jerrod is for 2010s. Lenny and George were very hard to get back in the day, only 50 years later, with a few books read about the "golden days of comedy" and living in a far different society, sure, they are so obvious. There is nothing offensive in their shows, only a few rednecks might feel offended.

Is Jerrod better? I don't know. I would like to look back 50 years later and I am sure at that point things are going to be far more clear.

I did not laugh once. I was shocked people laughed in the audience. But it's comedy, so laugh.

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He has a really good idea of how we should be presented a show on screen. You can see that he's acknowledged this is obviously going to be a different experience from watching it in person.

Too many specials just put you in the seat of the audience while you watch what happens on stage, cut to audience laughing, back to stage etc. While still looking similar to these other, more traditional, stand-up shows, Burnham manages to add something new to the visual experience. I feel a greater sense of humanity and meaning behind the specials he directs. These are feelings which I think exist when watching a show like this in person, but fail to translate to screen under poor direction. The start of the show, the point where the show ends, the camera angles and especially some great closeups make together the core reasons, for me, that this will be a unique (and better) experience to a viewer at home.

I enjoyed the writing of the show as well, some parts I related with a lot, and there was a few good laughs. The only problem I had was a couple times he would say something that doesn't apply to me/I don't agree with, which would be fine usually, but the whole point in these jokes is that we're supposed to be on the same page as him. This made for a couple chunks of the show with less laughs than I would have liked.

Jerrod Carmichael's 8 is a brilliant and honest special. The surreal take of direction by Bo Burnham is striking and intelligent. The jokes that Jerrod delivers seems like he is doing it on the spot, like he is talking to the audience. And the camera angles chosen for this special helps the Illusion that Jerrod is talking to us. Its is one of the best comedies I have seen in a long time.

jerrod wit, timing and humanity are absent from this performance and his pretentious and relentless charade of worldly defeatism doesn't work. Being gross can be funny but there has to be some context, some originality and some relative experience for the viewer to engage with.

I'd have to seriously question the professional judgment of the hbo team that saw this past the ideas stage! I'm assuming that they are all her friends or they divvied up her paycheck!