Nick Offerman: American Ham

My family loves "Parks and Recreation" and our favorite character in the show, by far, is Ron Swanson who is played by Nick Offerman. We knew nothing about Offerman--just that we really enjoyed watching him play that character. So, when we saw this new stand-up featuring Offerman, we wanted to see it and see who he was and what his act is like when he's not playing Ron. Sadly, though we love him on TV we did not like "Nick Offerman: American Ham". Our reasons boiled down to two big reasons: the stand-up routine was incredibly crude and it also really wasn't very funny. Now understand--we are NOT prudes and his cursing was not really the problem. Instead, he used a lot of words that IMDb won't allow in my review--words about female anatomy--some of which were very crude. And, since I was watching this with my wife and adult daughter, hearing him talking a lot about sex and female genitalia was very uncomfortable. Add to that that it wasn't funny, it made for a very painful viewing experience.

If you enjoy listening to a successful movie star complain about how divided the world is & how hateful the other other side of that divide is, but then does nothing throughout the show to bridge that divide, then this is the show for you. It would've been the campy fun prairie home companion type experience if he didn't decide to get into partisan political themes for the whole two hours, and in fact he started out very strong, taking jabs at every side of a thing and everyone in the audience was howling. But, then it became a soap box that unless you were 100% onboard with his identical world view, you would be checking your watch wondering when it ends. A vignette to close out this review: a couple quietly left mid show and he kept riffing on how they were hateful and part of the problem with this world 4-5 times before the show ended.

My firt reaction after reading the review "Nick Offerman is NOT Ron Swanson" was laughing. The writer got offended by some female genitalia passages because is ADULT daughter was sitting with them. Well that's ironic if you can only laugh with things without your ADULT daughter with you. Sounds like a stuck up prude family if you ask me. That said I thought his stand up comedy was very funny, just what I expected from him after watching Ron Swanson in Parks & Recreation like almost everybody knows him for. I thought he was almost the same character as in that great show, a woodloving meat eater liking great sex. His monologue is nice to listen to, too bad I had to miss his self written censured songs because of another stuck up person. It's like living in a censored society if you can't even enjoy somebodies creativity. If you don't like rude just don't watch it and I'm not just speaking about this show here. It's with everything, you don't like it, turn it off, but please let the rest enjoy it. We will make up our mind ourselves about it, that's not up to you. I can't believe you censor parodies, that's the whole point of parodical humor. Nick Offerman is funny, not only his humor, his whole character is.

A live taping of Nick Offerman's one-man show at New York's historic Town Hall theater, featuring a collection of anecdotes, songs and woodworking techniques.

Nick Offerman is a funny guy, and has an outlook on life that is different from what you will hear just about everywhere else. He is, quite possibly, the funniest part of "Parks and Recreation" and has gone up in stature over the last few years. But he may not be the right person to fill 80 minutes on stage.

Most of this is words of advice, and not necessarily jokes. When he does go for the joke, he seems to have a weird obsession with oral sex. He is surprisingly frank and forthright about his relationship with his wife, which is unusual.

*WARNING* If you enjoy a comedic style that uses a large vocabulary laid out in an excellent fashion with a wicked bit a crudeness then this show is for you. Not to be taken lightly, if you are easily offended please refrain from viewing this as it touched on many things some might find distasteful.

The show itself remind me a lot of the famous role he plays on Parks and Recreations in a variety of ways yet more crude and real, you'll have to watch to find out. The jokes are well written but I feel the bits where he plays the guitar are a bit lacking. With bible jokes, general jokes about life, sex, and lawyers this is sure to give you a good laugh.