Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale

I am a huge Jim Gaffigan fan. So multitalented and a sense of humor that you aren't afraid to listen to with your kids in the room. Good, clean fun. We both come from the midwest. I wanted to love this special as much as his others; but, he's lost a step. Perhaps COVID dulled his standup skills a bit, I can't say what it is, perhaps his material, perhaps he appeared to be trying a little too hard because he realilzed he wasn't hitting homeruns. Not sure; but, I'm not sure I had a good laugh until halfway through. I still think he's a national treasure; but, he has set the bar so high for himself that sooner or later he was going to come up short, and this special #10 ("Dark Pale") was the one. Hope it's just a glitch, a momentary lapse, because he is one of th best comedians alive today.

Just as good as the last ones, but COVID had taken his comedy into darker directions and I am all here for it! You can't expect someone to just make food jokes (and there still are some) for a quarter of a century. Also I bet some of this got review bombed because he said he hates Trump! He hates Trump not you get over yourself conservatives.

I thought his material was stronger pre-pandemic, but he is still better than 99% of active comedians and he doesn't weigh into the culture wars like Chapelle or Gervis even though I agree they have every right to. Just his typical brand of humor with a dark comedy twist.

When I first tried to watch Dark Pale from the beginning, I gave up after 5 minutes. I was surprised because I'm a fan of Gaffigan's humor & specials.

Then I saw a clip from Dark Pale from later in the show about dads and that was funny.

So, what I did was I skipped the "dark" humor from the beginning and got to about 15 minutes where Jim's more typical jokes started. Then it was regular Gaffigan humor the rest of the way. Some funny stuff from then on.

What's the problem? Imo after so many specials, Jim and Jeannie are running out of material and decided to try something new at the beginning of the show. Just skip that and the old Jim is back.

7/10.

Even though Jim Gaffigan often jokes that he hates to work, I believe that memorizing thousands of jokes and their timing and delivery has to be hard, like working. On average, Gaffigan films one comedy special every other year, and also tours about 300 cities a year, based on what he has said in his specials. That is a lot of work too.

In between the comedy specials and the tour schedule, Gaffigan has to write about 75 minutes of new material. I would not mind seeing him do a show with the best bits from all of his old specials, like the Waffle House, Hot Pockets, IHOP stuff, and the bear stories. Gaffigan has put together lots of great sequences of jokes over the years.

Unfortunately, in Dark Pale, Gaffigan seems to be hitting a bit of burn-out. It has to be hard to be funny when you are tired of touring 300 cities a year for many many years, getting on endless series of airplanes, drinking at an endless series of airports while waiting to get on airplanes, staying at thousands of hotels, etc. I don't know Jim Gaffigan personally, but I know I would be tired of such a schedule, if that was my life and career.

I don't know if Jim Gaffigan can ever get back to when he thought of comedy as something fresh and funny in his mind. I hope he can. I love a lot of his old specials, like Quality Time, King Baby, Obsessed, Beyond the Pale, Mr. Universe, etc. I look forward to his next special, and hopefully it will be fresh and funny again.

I laughed so much that my sides ached. He dared to go where many comedians shy away from these days. It was refreshing how he called the shots. True comedy pokes fun at real human experience. This is what I like about Jim; he gets real.

The dark comedy was a good way to not take myself so seriously. Life is short. You need to step back and laugh at some of the dogma and cultural things that make us real. I like how he addressed death, religion, and yes, coffee drinkers who are so wrapped up in themselves they forget to laugh.

If you are really honest with yourself you can laugh at multiple levels.