Last Comic Standing 5, Episode 2

My line on Last Comic Standing has always been to remember it as a reality show first, then a comedy competition. Meaning: casting considerations were always going to be made for who had the best “story.” With no more house for the comics to live (and yell at each other) in, I’m not sure that criticism is valid any more. I still think TV demands story. No matter what, the judging will be tainted by whose “story” is the most interesting, so it’s not necessarily who’s the funniest. We’ll see.

General Thoughts:

• Ant has been edited to look like the most charitable laugher of the three judges. Perhaps in reaction to reports of him attempting to be Simon Cowell of the judges.
• Bill Bellamy is barely on the show with the three judges - I don’t think we’ve even seen them talk together. Which is weird.
• The bizarreness of Kathleen Madigan, Alonzo Bodden and Ant judging some of these folks - many of whom are on the same level as they are and who they’ve probably worked with. The difficulties of getting bigger names to judge kind of make it a necessity to use comics who are peers as judges - they can’t even get Bellamy to go to Texas, much less Australia. So I’ll simply say that this might lead to some awkward moments on the road for the judges in the future.

Los Angeles
Auditions: Of all locations, LA is most likely to bring highs and lows. So many working comics live here and so many people desperate to be on TV do too. In fact, Ant is shocked, I tell you shocked, to tell us exactly the latter.

Which leads us to one of the standards of LCS - the montage of horribleness followed by the antidote. Here the montage features over-enthusiastic comic making noises, flopping around. The antidote: Sean Rouse, who’s wonderfully low key. He gets brought to the finals, despite swearing, a big past no-no.

One rejectee Chad Lehrman’s bit about being an edgy comic was a commentary that was lost on the judges (and probably most of the audience). Not that I found the bit insanely funny, but I got it.

I have to admit, I liked rejectee Dan McGowan’s old song/rock with a stick bit. But that may just be me.

The Show:
Alycia Cooper, who’s told it’s on Kathleen if she doesn’t bring it, does a Dick Cheney joke. Which isn’t bad, but since the judges are groaning about hearing certain topics over and over again, freshness is probably a key here.

Getting attached to anyone in the auditions is a little ridiculous because at least two - Dwayne Perkins and Thea Vidale - aren’t even shown in the auditions and are winners.

Sean Rouse jokes about his rheumatoid arthritis {“it’s something you live with until you die from it.”) and I’m grateful the producers let the joke speak, rather than showing a reality show confessional.

Winners: Thea Vidale, Sean Rouse, Dwayne Perkins, Sarah Colonna, Jon Reep and audience favorite Dante. (Jon Reep talks about celebrating with some “make out sex” on the cell phone - then mentions that was his brother on the line. That made me laugh.)

Australia

Auditions: The horrible montage with the following antidote goes like this: Australians are hard to understand, even thought they speak English. Then Gina Yashere, from the slightly more familiar London England, actually has an accent you can understand. Slightly xenophobic?

A second montage of the Jesterish brand of comedy leads us to the antidote of Claire Hooper, who does my favorite joke of the night - learning sign language to sign the phrases “I’m behind this wall” and “That’s how I lost my arms.” Brilliant.

The judges give shit to a comic named Davo for doing a knock-knock joke. Davo walks off before giving the judges a chance to reject him. Then Ant invites him to the show that night. Which he doesn’t appear to hear because he doesn’t show (or Ant’s invitation was shot later in the day to make a nice ha-ha for editors).

The Show: Adam Vincent, who got past auditions with a joke about Jesus being a homeless person undercover, is shown again doing that joke for the big show. I’m sure he has more stuff, but it points to a problem for contestants - if you don’t have material that’s insanely classic, comics will need a big stream of material to keep on impressing the home audience. Surprise is a key.

Claire Hooper does a joke which refers to a sweater as a “jumper.” I kind of wonder if the cultural difference in terms is what keeps her from going to LA.

My favorite is a comic named Lawrence Mooney who in auditions had a brilliant joke about homophobia possibly being an actual fear. He does a joke about hearing an Arabic pilot announcing turbulence on a plane in his native tongue. It’s the kind of observation that I don’t hear American comics doing much because I guess we’re not as aware of the rest of the world. Kinda refreshing.

Winners: Fiona O’Loughlin, Adam Vincent, Gina Yashere, Lawrence Mooney