Last Comic Standing, Season 4 Episode 1, Recap 6/06

After the nationwide talent search, twenty comics – half of those selected, will each perform three minute sets in front of a live audience. The audience will then select five of the twenty to go to the Last Comic Standing house.

[ClickPress, Thu Jun 08 2006] Last Comic Standing has been resurrected after flaming out in Season Three, but it’s too soon to tell whether or not NBC made the right decision whether by themselves (in the form of ratings) or by us (in the form of actual entertainment).

There are three guest “talent scouts” (aka judges): sitcom guru Garry Marshal, SNL alum Tim Meadows, and comic/notorious D-Lister Kathy Griffin. (I believe her Bravo show season premiere aired at the same time as this show. She really DOES work that D-List hard!)

Some highlights from the twenty performers are:
Chris Porter – a tall gangly young man who does an extended riff bashing France; he loses track of time and his mike is cut.
Roz – she has a long bit about being a career counselor who helped prostitutes translate their – ahem – skills into resume-appropriate corporate-speak. The edited bits we saw didn’t seem, to me, to be especially funny, but the audience seemed to eat it up.
Saleem – a large man who is sharply humorous but with an easy, almost off-handed delivery and natural confidence in front of the audience.
Josh Blue – young guy who looks a little like a fairer Screech from Saved by the Bell. Josh has Cerebral Palsy and much of his act is about how the world responds to that.
Nikki Glazer – a cute 21-year-old blond, she goes the Sarah Silverman route and makes a rape joke…and I’m not sure anyone BUT Sarah Silverman could pull it off anyway.
Wild Willy Parsons – older biker guy who’s spent time in jail; he’s engaging and Kathy Griffin thinks he’s won the crowd over.

The audience selects the first group of five who will be going to the Last Comic Standing house. They are Chris Porter, Roz, Josh Blue, April Macie and Joey Gay.

Next week, another twenty will take the stage, and of those, another five will be selected as the best of that bunch. The ten comics will then go to their Last Comic Standing house, and possibly will be joined by an eliminated comic selected by online voters.

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