Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale

I love the comedy of Gaffigan. But in this special, there are sections where he traded in social commentary for comedy. Don't get me wrong, I can laugh at jokes directed at any party. But his SJW 'jokes' didn't even make me chuckle. I've seen all of his specials, but I've noticed that the more political he gets, the less funny his specials become.

In all honesty, I don't think I laughed until about 15 minutes into it, and he's done diarrhea jokes in the past, but this one went WAY to long. I will admit that there were parts in there that was funny in the way that Gaffigan normally does it. Overall, I'd say this wasn't one of his best efforts. But he's set the bar pretty high for himself and it's hard to keep that consistency.

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.

Jim Gaffigan has always been a reliable and hysterical laugh and this was just not it. He took a couple mediocre bits and absolutely rode them into oblivion. It really seemed like he either fell into the "they'll laugh at anything I say" trap, or he thought he could completely change his style. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he witnessed the meteoric rise of Joe Rogan and his band of edgy comics and decided to try and tiptoe that way too. We chuckled a few times and watched the whole show but it didn't have the same punch any of his other shows. I'm rooting for his next set to get back to funny Jim.

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.