OK so making this topic was prompted by something that happened to me no more than a few hours ago. I was at my buddy's browsing his Virgin Media On Demand service, I chose the Dane Cook HBO special simply because I fancied watching some HD content. I had never heard of this Dane Cook guy before and so like I do with any stand up comedian, I approached this performance with an open mind. Unfortunately after five minutes me and my buddy found it to be so dire that it was turned off.
First we had to endure about two and a half minutes maybe more of the crowd just cheering, it was as boring as hell but I guess it was effective in building hype and to be fair the crowd in that arena made an impressive amount of noise. I was sat there ready for this man to break into this comedic routine. His first punchline was "you know what I've been doing a lot lately? Lieing." Not much of a punchline I know, but there was the deliberate pause for this absolutely idiotic crowd to once again woop and cheer (come on, I've just sat through two and a half minutes of that, now you're trying my patience). I glanced at my buddy who was shaking his head and was in just as much disbelief as I was, how the hell was the first punch line funny, really?
Some people in this arena instead of actually laughing at his jokes cheered instead! What the fuck is going on there? Typically you go see a comedian and you laugh (usually spontaneously and uncontrobollably due to the very nature of laughing), but no apparently the first thing some people do nowadays is cheer for a joke that isnt even funny. I'll give another quote: "I hadn't seen this guy for many many years, since back in the day, which was a wednesday by the way" [crowd woops and cheers in a similar fashion to a crowd cheering Susan Boyle for winning the semi-final of Britain's Got Talent].
So this mediocre comedy routine about telling lies goes on, but I for one was just annoyed at how crappy the first five minutes of this HBO special on a supposed comedy god had been that with the approval of my buddy I stopped it there. To me relief we decided on a classic episode of Peep Show, something that is not over-hyped and in my opinion a hundred times more funny that this Dane Cook stand up program.
Now all of the above has strictly been based on my own individual opinion but there are two main points I'm trying to make this thread.
Firstly, in terms of getting a newcomer like me to become a fan of this guy's work, that HBO special failed miserably. Half of the time it's just watching a crowd in an arena cheering, the other half watching stand up that left a lot to be desired by anyone's standard. Maybe after that first five minutes things really do get much better; maybe the crowd decide to pipe their silly obnoxious asses down and maybe this Dane Cook delivers some impressive jokes. But unfortunately because no one making this took due care and time in the first five minutes of this program to make it genuinely entertaining I have no reason to carry on. I'm really surprised, I mean this comedian is not well known over here in the UK so to say this HBO special is being distributed pretty heavily via Virgin On Demand surely some agent figure relating to Dane Cook said "hey there is no way anyone's going to continue watching this drivel if this is what the first five minutes i like", no?
Secondly, I was just astonished at how he was performing stand up to this sell out crowd. How can such a vast amount of people like this person? The only legitimate reasons I can think of are 90% of those in that arena somewhere along the way jumped on this pathetic Dane Cook bandwagon with most people not actually caring about the calibre of talent on display. The people on this bandwagon might just be merely looking for social acceptance, the ability to woop and cheer with friends in a packed out arena on a Saturday Night, I really don't know.
I found a link to the video in question: http://www.imeem.com/people/ea2cSY/video/attqb1sR/dane-cook-the-vicious-circle-hbo-special-part-1-comedy-vid/
I'm curious how many people roughly on here like Dane Cook, and also who feels the same way I do about this crappy comedian but about another famous comedian. Please Discuss.
First we had to endure about two and a half minutes maybe more of the crowd just cheering, it was as boring as hell but I guess it was effective in building hype and to be fair the crowd in that arena made an impressive amount of noise. I was sat there ready for this man to break into this comedic routine. His first punchline was "you know what I've been doing a lot lately? Lieing." Not much of a punchline I know, but there was the deliberate pause for this absolutely idiotic crowd to once again woop and cheer (come on, I've just sat through two and a half minutes of that, now you're trying my patience). I glanced at my buddy who was shaking his head and was in just as much disbelief as I was, how the hell was the first punch line funny, really?
Some people in this arena instead of actually laughing at his jokes cheered instead! What the fuck is going on there? Typically you go see a comedian and you laugh (usually spontaneously and uncontrobollably due to the very nature of laughing), but no apparently the first thing some people do nowadays is cheer for a joke that isnt even funny. I'll give another quote: "I hadn't seen this guy for many many years, since back in the day, which was a wednesday by the way" [crowd woops and cheers in a similar fashion to a crowd cheering Susan Boyle for winning the semi-final of Britain's Got Talent].
So this mediocre comedy routine about telling lies goes on, but I for one was just annoyed at how crappy the first five minutes of this HBO special on a supposed comedy god had been that with the approval of my buddy I stopped it there. To me relief we decided on a classic episode of Peep Show, something that is not over-hyped and in my opinion a hundred times more funny that this Dane Cook stand up program.
Now all of the above has strictly been based on my own individual opinion but there are two main points I'm trying to make this thread.
Firstly, in terms of getting a newcomer like me to become a fan of this guy's work, that HBO special failed miserably. Half of the time it's just watching a crowd in an arena cheering, the other half watching stand up that left a lot to be desired by anyone's standard. Maybe after that first five minutes things really do get much better; maybe the crowd decide to pipe their silly obnoxious asses down and maybe this Dane Cook delivers some impressive jokes. But unfortunately because no one making this took due care and time in the first five minutes of this program to make it genuinely entertaining I have no reason to carry on. I'm really surprised, I mean this comedian is not well known over here in the UK so to say this HBO special is being distributed pretty heavily via Virgin On Demand surely some agent figure relating to Dane Cook said "hey there is no way anyone's going to continue watching this drivel if this is what the first five minutes i like", no?
Secondly, I was just astonished at how he was performing stand up to this sell out crowd. How can such a vast amount of people like this person? The only legitimate reasons I can think of are 90% of those in that arena somewhere along the way jumped on this pathetic Dane Cook bandwagon with most people not actually caring about the calibre of talent on display. The people on this bandwagon might just be merely looking for social acceptance, the ability to woop and cheer with friends in a packed out arena on a Saturday Night, I really don't know.
I found a link to the video in question: http://www.imeem.com/people/ea2cSY/video/attqb1sR/dane-cook-the-vicious-circle-hbo-special-part-1-comedy-vid/
I'm curious how many people roughly on here like Dane Cook, and also who feels the same way I do about this crappy comedian but about another famous comedian. Please Discuss.
