Just For Laughs: Odenkirk & Cross Host The Line Up

Filed Under Just For Laughs

I was very excited to see this show and it did not disappoint. After David Cross reasserted his place in the comedy duo by winning a dance contest (somewhat to Bob Odenkirk’s chagrin), the pair did a scene parodying the French preference in Montreal. Bob played himself, simply attempting to order a coffee from a barrista who pretends to not know English and then French, pushing the behavior to logical insanity by insisting inside his cafe he has his own language.
Here’s a show rundown:

  • Kurt & Kristen were brilliant, sharing the invention of the phone by Pocahontas and the transcript of the first call made on it, then performing a live sex act on stage - but not in the way you’re thinking of it. it was set to Prince’s “Cream” however.
  • Videos from Leon & Andy were played, which I didn’t find insanely funny but they were incredibly inventive - going to completely unexpected places. A mourner at a grave gave way to a skeleton singing a mambo song about not having enough cell phone minutes. Good stuff, I just didn’t laugh.
  • Hot Sauce had some fun with comedy tropes including obscure impressions (the red head’s boyfriend from Sex in the City) and performing stand-up too soon after a death. But their most elaborate scene involved the breaking of several eggs on stage, the first being the “child” that one member had continued to raise past the high school homework assignment and culminating with eggs descending for the rafters. Naturally, after that there was an intermission.
  • The pair of women who make up Karla were wonderfully pre-verbal for much of their sketches, emphasizing much more how things are said - a credit upgrade becomes a declaration by the town crier and a repetitive apologetic conversation comes to a naturally explosive angry conclusion. But their last, featuring a puppet entitled Unhappy Ursula was a brilliant little fable about day-to-day life. Not necessarily one for children mind you, what with shitting of the bed and all. Despite that, it was a rare joyful sketch where “pegasus were real, filling children’s hearts with joy - which turned into actual cash.”
  • The Buffoons were solid, though their first sketch to me suffered by comparison to another comic. In my mind, an effeminate latino accent belong to Nick Kroll’s “Fabrice Fabrice” and nobody else. But other sketches were grand. One featured a pair of construction worked cursing their wives for their horrible packed lunches (which included a Buzzlightyear Pez, a “wacky” pen and F. Scott Fitzgerald “This Side of Paradise”). The second had a vaudeville team which punches their jokes with incredibly hard slaps to the face degenerate from bits into an all out brawl.

I also enjoyed a chance to see some videos fom Straightjacket - a British comedy group that Odenkirk has taken a shine to. Their work is short and punchy, not belaboring the bit at all. Here’s my favorite from the set - I venture to say it was the audience favorite too. It’s called “Font Perv”

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