Eddie Izzard: Circle

I challenge you to think of ANY period in world history and I bet Eddie Izzard could make it hilarious. Eddie Izzard isn’t quite a household name in the US yet, despite his unbelievable success in England. In British television station’s poll, he ranked in the top 5 comedians of all time. Though he is most recognized for being a transvestite, Izzard is no gimmick. His sets consistently tackle issues of history and religion. From the small quirks to the big disasters, he can find a laugh in any joke he tells.

His style is very unique. He has no set routine before he goes out on stage. Typically, a comedian has everything planned out (first I’m going to do a joke about the grocery story, transition to fat people, then go on to make fun of the South…), but Izzard, though his jokes are prepared, does not have everything in order. His set is entirely stream-of-conscious, which has a few effects on his delivery. First, because he does not know what joke to jump to from time to time, you’ll hear a lot of “So yeah…” fillers followed quickly by the new premise. Second, in the middle of a joke, he’ll go on a long tangent based on something he said. These can be a single sentence to an entire track. These tangents are so well done, that when he returns to the joke he was initially telling, the audience is completely oblivious to the fact that it was even a tangent at all. They just expect that to be the natural stream of the joke.

Izzard also likes to poke fun at Americans, either by impersonating our unnecessary profanity, or criticizing our lack of interest in other countries’ affairs. For example, after joking about Northern Ireland for about 15 seconds to a silent American audience, Izzard exclaims “do you know there’s other countries?” And on that note, I present my first review for a comedian born outside of North America, Eddie Izzard’s 6th album, Circle.

“The Pope…what’s going on there, eh?”

It takes Eddie less than three minutes to start making jokes about religion and history, starting light at making fun of the Popes’ names and then moving on to the Crusades. He pokes fun out how petty the reasons for fighting were and how most of the conflicts were just differences of perspective. The set veers off to jokes about Jesus and how He plays a role in most major religions.

Side tangent about Americans and baseball. Yes, it oddly enough makes sense in context.

Back to religion! Eddie has a long bit about the role of Dinosaurs in Christianity. He ponders their absence in the Bible and recreates a scene in which Jesus goes down to preach His Father’s word to them the same way Christians believe He did for humans; it’s very reminiscent to Bill Cosby’s Noah jokes. From the conversations between Jesus and God to Jesus ad-libbing the beatitudes, the joke is a hit, and Mr. Cosby would be proud.

“It’s a fucking weaving joke…”

From there the album turns more towards more mundane topics, like seals being handy with balls to inventions of weaving tools, which even he can’t help but groan at. The jokes are entertaining, but nothing spectacular.

And now, the set turns towards his expertise: History. He gives brief highlights of history from the Roman Empire through the Dark Ages ending with World War II. Izzard makes fun of several figures in history, both big and small, and each joke is hilarious. He chooses WWII to make the most fun of Americans’ ignorance, primarily talking about Saving Private Ryan and how the movie completely ignores any foreign aid given in the war (“what’s the name for us? Oh yes, the ALLIES!”).

“Dad, don’t worry, nobody’s going to work it out for 2000 years until the transvestite points it out in New York”

Back to Religion! In the same light as the Dinosaur joke, Izzard jokes about God sending Jesus down as man. He performs it as if Jesus is recapping everything He did to God as if God wasn’t aware of what happened. God doesn’t seem too pleased with a few things Jesus tells the people. The joke puts Jesus’ words and messages in a new light. It’s nothing blasphemous (though Izzard’s certainly not afraid of such thing), and incredibly entertaining.

Finally, one of my favorite bits of his ends the album. Ever wonder how everybody on the Death Star in Star Wars eats? Izzard did, and he has a whole track dedicated to the Death Star Canteen. The whole joke is a dialogue between Darth Vader and a cashier in the cafeteria. A brilliant, original joke acted out perfectly.

This album puts more emphasis on religion and less on history than most of Izzard’s work, which is a little disappointing considering how great he can be with historical jokes. Nonetheless, the CD is filled with great, original material that is perfectly timed and executed. The only reasons I can imagine somebody not liking this are Izzard’s British mumbling, which is rare but present, and if somebody is touchy to topics of religion. He doesn’t hit it as hard as say David Cross, and he does make a point to have jokes about all major religions, but there is material that Christians MAY be offended at. Extreme emphasis on the “may”. Regardless, it’s a great album that I recommend to all.

Worst tracks: Mad European Cows, Hatred and Sharks
Best Tracks: Jesus and Man, Death Star Canteen

Overall Rating: 8/10

Redd Foxx: Sly Sex

Redd Foxx is an icon of comedy. He helped pave the way for two groups of comedians: African Americans, and comedians who joke about sex(Eddie Murphy thanked him by paying for his lavish funeral bill when his widow couldn't so that he would have a proper send-off). His set is known for being very raunchy and inappropriate for children to listen to. In fact, for a long time his records were not even sold in white record stores because they were too dirty. But eventually his stand-up landed him the famous role that most remember him for: Fred Sanford on Sanford and Son. During his very long career, he put out a whopping 54 albums, Sly Sex being one of the middle ones.

Now, it is difficult to find too much information on his album. Some comedy sites don't even list it in his discography, and the rest only give a year and album cover, if anything. After listening to it, I can tell why.

The problem with recording over fifty albums is that it doesn't give the comedian enough time to come up with quality material. In 1960 alone he released 9 albums, more than Chris Rock and Steve Martin recorded in their entire careers...combined. Today, comedians usually take at least a year or two between releases, between which they are touring and testing out their new material. Now, I know that if you took all of Foxx's albums, and took the best three hours of all of them, you'd have three amazing CDs, but grouped as they are, it's much more difficult to find a gem.

Foxx's material in Sly Sex is just poor. They sound like bad jokes you hear from your grandfather or read in a joke book. They aren't addressing any issues, they aren't mocking any aspect of life, they aren't particularly witty. They're just fluff. Some of it is dirty fluff, but fluff nonetheless.

Now like I said, he had an impossible task of coming up with material in a very short time. I don't know the specifics of his contract with Dooto Records or whether it was his choice or theirs, but it ruined the album, that's for sure.

Besides the bad material, Foxx is definitely playing in a very small venue. Sometimes this can be a great thing for a comedian. It gives them a more intimate setting where their jokes can have a greater effect. Except in this case, you can identify everybody's laughs and can hear their comments to him very clearly. It may have helped Redd out, but for the listening audience, it completely takes away from the act, especially as they laugh to very poor jokes.

Also, as with the case with most old comedy albums, the track's are not neatly cut up and titled, so Sly Sex consists of Side 1, and Side 2. With this one, I'm not even going to try to tell which is better and which is worse. They're both terrible.

Overall rating: 1/10

Norm MacDonald: Ridiculous

Norm MacDonald first hit national spotlight when he was a cast member of Saturday Night Live in the 1990's. He anchored the Weekend Update for a few years, becoming one of the fans' favorite anchors in the shows amazing tenure. Along with his writing and acting, Norm also performs stand up comedy (go figure) and has the honor of making Comedy Central's top 100 comedians of all time (as have five of the other comedians I've reviewed), and is a popular name in numerous comedy cliques.

His style is very unique, in that, not only is he not afraid to bomb, he will do it intentionally. For example, on the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, Norm told overly cheesy, stupid jokes that barely made fun of Saget. This contrasted the usual roast so well that most of the audience and viewers at home were cringing at how poorly he was doing. But if you watch the comedians on the side listening, you'll notice that they're laughing harder at Norm's material than anybody else's, because they know exactly what he's doing, and they get a kick out of it. He'll even perform cheesy old jokes on talk shows for the same purpose. Conan O'Brien has noted that Norm is one of his favorite guests.

I'm sure you're thinking, "Why the hell isn't Joe talking about the CD at all? We want to hear about his stand-up in this CD!" Hold your horses, folks. Despite Norm's famed and noteworthy career, he has but one album to offer his fans, Ridiculous, and it's not even a stand-up album. Instead, Norm comprises his CD of sketches similar to what he would write or perform on SNL. He even uses some of his former cast-members for the parts (Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Tim Meadows to name a few). So this review won't be talking about his stand-up, but more his writing.

Norm starts off with a parody of the Fantastic Four, making fun of their super identities' names. He plays a Mr. Fantastic who cannot comprehend why the other members of the group have any problem with his egotistical name. The punchlines are set up incredibly well, and Norm's timing and acting are superb as he delivers them. Starting with the first funny line through the end of the track, he gives line after line of funny material.

Following this track is a long one about a country music legend who is coming out of years of hiding to produce a new album. Slowly, the producers realize that their beloved legend is now gay...very gay. Panic ensues as they try to think of ways to cover it up. The jokes in this track are good, but not quick enough. It's a 19 minute long track that could have been shorted to 12, and there's just too much time between funny lines. Like I said, the jokes are good, but audiences have to go through a lot of waiting to get to them.

Next is the first of two three-track jokes. I'll go through the three tracks in this paragraph to simplify things. It revolves around a sportscaster (Norm) who has clearly bet a lot of money on the outcome of the football game he is announcing. From kickoff, to half-time, to the two minute warning (the three tracks), he's concerned about his quarterback's potentially debilitating disease and how it will affect his wager. Good jokes, good set ups, good tracks.


The other three-track joke is probably his best set of the CD. The subject: The first two men to discover gay sex. Right away you know the set can be either brilliant or horrendous. For it, Norm calls on the comedy talent of Will Ferrell, who will do anything for a laugh, in a good way (see his SNL sketch wearing patriotic short shorts for proof). Him and Norm play two dudes who realize that they love sex, but don't currently have any women present, and have to find some sort of solution to their dilemma at hand. Ferrell goes ALL out to make these tracks an absolute gut-buster. While Norm is also excellent as the straight man (for lack of a better term), credit for these tracks goes mostly to Will. These three tracks are evenly dispersed on the CD, which creates a great flow of laughs, as they create very few long pauses of comedy. Well done, Norm.

There are a few more sketches thrown in on the CD, but nothing too notable, unless you have a fetish for Molly Shannon talking dirty. Norm does, at the end, play one of his older stand-up bits about Star Search. Sorry, I guess my earlier comment that this was not a stand up CD was slightly off. It's not particularly a great bit, but it does give the audience a good glimpse of Norm's style and stage presence.

Overall, this CD is very funny, with mostly clean humor, though the parts of it that aren't clean, can be quite raunchy. Like I've said repeatedly, don't go into this expecting stand-up. Some of the tracks can be a bit slow, but they are mostly for the purpose of setting up punchlines, as each new track brings about a completely different joke, no transitions like most good stand-up has. If you like Norm MacDonald, you will probably like this CD, but if you've listened to him and you just don't get him, this may not be the best album for you, though I think it's still worth a listen.

Worst Tracks: Tex Hooper, Burning Bed
Best Tracks: [World's First Two Gay Guys, A Wonderful Afternoon Gone Awry, Do You Want A Sandwich Or Anything?], Fantastic Four

Overall rating: 7/10