Throughout his long stand-up career, Demetri Martin has been compared to deadpan comedy assassins like Steven Wright and the late Mitch Hedberg. But, as Martin’s latest special shows, his low-register absurdism owes a lot to tireless road veteran Todd Barry as well, though Martin’s affectless manner isn’t a sly…

Two minutes into Noble Ape, Jim Gaffigan’s sixth comedy special, the comic addresses the elephant in the room—and immediately makes it do a little dance. “In April, it was discovered that my wife had a brain tumor. I’m not even making this up,” Gaffigan begins. “It was removed, she’s great, everything’s good.” It’s a…

Cameron Esposito’s Rape Jokes was made for times like these—the comedian and Take My Wife creator said as much in a press release announcing the new special earlier this week. When Esposito set out to start a discussion on consent and sexual assault in the midst of the #MeToo movement, she knew a five-minute stand-up…

Here’s the most important thing to know about Steve Martin and Martin Short’s new Netflix comedy special: There are about five minutes of straight banjo. This is a petty yet useful detail for most people who have long loved Martin’s comedy while warmly acknowledging his bluegrass—perhaps even turning up to a bluegrass…

Tragedy and resilience have marked Tig Notaro’s stand-up career as much as her deadpan delivery and delightfully serpentine storytelling. In 2012, her breakout year, Notaro was reeling from the death of her mother, a breakup, and a cancer diagnosis when she took the Largo stage in Los Angeles. She introduced herself…

Coming out onto the enormous, lavishly glitzy stage of Radio City Music Hall to start his new comedy special, John Mulaney stands alone facing the huge, appreciative crowd and squarely orients himself with his very first line: “I love to play venues where, if the guy that built the venue could see me on the stage, he…

While the execution of its undeniably original concept is solid, the idea of The Honeymoon Stand Up Special ultimately promises more than it delivers. The unique, three-part special from (fairly) recently wed comics and Another Period co-stars Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher comes at the audience in three segments.…

Appearing on Hannibal Buress’ podcast back in September, Chris Rock talked shop about the relatively small venue he’d chosen for Tamborine, his first stand-up special in a decade, and his first in a lucrative two-special deal with Netflix. Rock told Buress that the Brooklyn Academy Of Music’s comparatively homey…

There’s no better standup working today than Patton Oswalt, his observational skills turning anecdotes into painfully funny short stories, and insults into dizzyingly nimble tirades. For the first 35 minutes of his new Netflix special, Patton Oswalt: Annihilation, Oswalt is the comic we expect, even as his elaborately…

Rory Scovel’s new Netflix special is called Rory Scovel Tries Stand-Up For the First Time, a premise the comedian never mentions on stage but does commit to during a taped mid-show sketch featuring Jack White. “What about a guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, is completely out of his element, unattractive, probably…

Close to halfway through Meticulously Ridiculous, T.J. Miller’s new comedy special for HBO, he does a bit composed of some oddball wordplay, and it falls a little flat. “Wish I hadn’t done that joke,” he muses, getting a bigger laugh than he did for the gag. “That’s a real litmus test for how the more absurd stuff is…

“I’m gonna be indulgent,” Sarah Silverman notes around halfway through her new Netflix stand-up special A Speck of Dust. It’s a different tactic for her, even if it doesn’t sound like it at first. While Silverman’s most famous comedy routines do indulge in their share of pushing (buttons, envelopes, boundaries,…

Hasan Minhaj shares a lot of comic ground with Aziz Ansari. Beyond their experiences growing up in 1990s America as the children of Indian immigrants, the two comedians have developed a similarly self-aggrandizing onstage brashness, a baller’s persona where name-dropping cockiness and pop culture markers point up…

Norm Macdonald has said that his ideal joke would have the same setup and punchline, a prime example being his old Weekend Update line about Julia Roberts’ marriage to Lyle Lovett coming to an end when she realized that she was Julia Roberts and she was married to Lyle Lovett. This platonic ideal of deadpan minimalism…

Partway through his one-man show, Career Suicide, Chris Gethard puts an anecdote on pause in order to address his audience. He’s been discussing the decision to treat his depression with prescription medication, and he steps toward the front row, which is arranged in a cozy horseshoe of vintage sofas and end tables.…

In the opening of Old Baby, Maria Bamford suggests to an imagined audience member uncomfortable with her distinctive comic voice, “Take a lap outside. Get yourself a treat!” Even Bamford is ostensibly uncomfortable with her material, which delivers fearless truth about mental illness, family trauma, and incontinent…

About 31 minutes into Louis CK’s latest stand-up special, the crowd bursts into applause after he makes an offhand comment about how hard it is to be a public school teacher in the United States. Normally, this the type of thing a comic says when they want a round of applause, but CK is quick to rebuff the crowd:…

Dave Chappelle is back for real. That’s the very welcome message delivered this morning by a pair of comedy specials, part of a three-special deal the comic inked with Netflix. Deep In The Heart Of Texas (recorded in Austin in 2015) and The Age Of Spin (filmed in L.A. in last year), come on the heels of Chappelle’s…

If you’re familiar with Jen Kirkman’s stand-up, or have had the misfortune of running afoul of her on Twitter, you know that she’s one of the most outspoken comedians working today, that she’s unapologetic about her feminism, and she’s not particularly concerned with any discomfort this may cause her male fans. That…

When Jim Gaffigan is described as a “clean,” it can’t help but feel like a bit of an insult. Yes, Gaffigan largely avoids swear words or sexual references in his act, but to call what he does “clean comedy”—the Netflix synopsis for his new special, Cinco, calls him the “king” of the stuff—it’s like saying that’s all …