Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion

We gave up about halfway through this yawn fest. The audience was obviously drunk and/or paid to be there; they mimed laughter only as long as they thought they were in the shot.

Big fan of stand up, this is the single funniest comedy act I have ever seen.

It is hard to call it stand up, it is not just him standing in front of a mic telling zingers. It is him mostly on piano the whole show sharing with you a peak inside is hilarious, self-aware yet sometimes self-loathing mind. There is dark humor, there is witty humor, there is eccentricity that makes you laugh, there are audience interactions that make you cringe (seemingly intentionally) and parts that make you jealous you weren't in the room. It is electric!

I cannot recommend this special highly enough. It has been over 15 years from its release and I still have not laughed harder at a comedy act. Truly brilliant!

King of the one-liner, insult comedy, strange lying-down comedy, meta comedy, musical comedy.

This is a SPECIAL special. This film of a Zach G stand-up set captures a comedian at the peak of his powers, completely self-deprecatory and self-deconstructive, if that's a thing, Zach is just plain funny. That's all you need to know.

The only moments that didn't work for me bordered on insult-comedy and audience- participation, the sort of moments normally aimed at hecklers. Just not a fan of that sort of thing. They still worked well to showcase how quick Zach is, because he bounces instantly off something the audience-member says into something brilliant.

The chief genre here is one-liner. If you don't care for one-liners, steer clear. If you've never seen a Zach G comedy set (like I hadn't) highly recommended.

I won't lie, it starts off rough. It takes a bit for Zach to get good, but once he's 2-3 beers in, it gets much better. Zach has a lot of one liners and silly characters, some land, some don't. He also likes to pick on the audience, somethings it's funny, sometimes it's just painful. But the drunker he gets, the more entertaining he is. What starts off cringe turns into a laughing fit by the end, you just need to hang in there. By no means tho will every joke land, and for some I can understand why they'll bail out early. Again, it starts out rough.

Interspersed throughout the show is cutaways to Zach talking about his life or playing a character as his "brother". These bits are odd but very humorous. If you are a fan of the Hangover, you will see where a lot of the inspiration for Zach's role comes from between his jokes and his characters.

By the end tho, it is funny. And shout out to Carl, the real hero of this special. We need more good sported audience members like you.

Zach Gach-fix-kin-ass-key is one of the freshest comedians walking the comedy beat today, he has created a very original style of comedy and the best way I can describe it is to call it "venting". You know that feeling of awkward hilarity when someone does something embarrassing and you cant help but laugh? he tends to blend that, with making fun of himself and his past and I have to say that I cant remember the last time I laughed so hard. His comedic style beats the HELL out of Dane Cook's overcooked garbage. My favorite quote from the film is "When you look like I do it's hard to get a table for one at a Chuck E' Cheese." I cant really say much more other than there should be a movie made about Zach's "brother" Seth Galifiankis.