Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
As comedians go, Jim Gaffigan is about as straightforward as they come. So when he named his newest stand-up comedy special, Cinco, there’s no hidden message behind it. As Gaffigan tells the audience early in his 73-minute performance from Columbus, Ohio: “This is my fifth hour special. I have one for each of my five children. So, hopefully, this is the last one. Yeah.”
All of Gaffigan’s previous specials joined Cinco in a new exclusive deal with Netflix. And all of Gaffigan’s children plus his wife (who directed and co-wrote this special), have gradually become a part of his life’s work, as well as his life. The “Gaffigan Five,” as Jim and Jeannie call their offspring, have introduced Gaffigan onstage on tour, appeared in his TV ad campaign for Chrysler, the finale of The Jim Gaffigan Show on TV Land, and in an opening sketch here in Cinco.
Gaffigan is better than a Cinco de Mayonnaise joke, but I’m not.
He has written two best-selling books, Dad Is Fat, and Food: A Love Story, and his comedy has become as popular as the comfort food he often jokes about – even if he hopes to punch holes through his premises with his punchlines to let you know how oddly comfortable we’ve all become with things that aren’t healthy for us.
So he’s quick to point out before you can that he has become fatter since last you saw him. “I gave up a long time ago. Now it’s like it’s happening to someone else,” he jokes.
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A child of the Midwest, Gaffigan’s childhood memories always revolved around winter, cold and snow, but he also stops to give a shout-out to the other seasons – and different voices to fall foliage and pine trees, to show he’s got range outside of his trademark inner voice that usually comments on his act onstage.
Certainly some of Gaffigan’s topics for humor may seem all-too trivial, but he digs deep into each premise like a Jeopardy champion running the table. Can I get binge-watching TV for $200? $400? $600? $800? $1,000? Speaking of which, he does stop to acknowledge fans of his TV Land series, which he also co-created and co-wrote with his wife. “I appreciate it,” he says. “And if you didn’t watch, that just means you’re a jerk. But no, thank you if you did watch ‘cause there are so many television shows and episodes of television shows we could and should be watching. It’s amazing any of us are here right now.”
As he first made clear in his 2012 special, Mr. Universe, our cultural appetite tends toward fast and easy, like McDonald’s, comfort or junk food. We know better, and yet we still seek it out. Binge-watching allows us to fall in a similar trap, and Gaffigan jokes how streaming TV has become a more popular relationship for us than those we have with friends or family; how Netflix reminds us of past relationships or points us to new suitors. Much better than the alternative, though. Gaffigan jokes how TV commercials judge us, while cable TV news depresses us.
And sometimes, if you’re not keeping up with the times, you are the person with a flip phone. Or you just feel that way, he jokes.
But Gaffigan, much like comfort food himself, always comes back to familiar themes of food, laziness, and the complications of parenting. Sometimes how the former themes further complicate the latter.
He’d just as soon live out his time as one of the grandparents in bed during Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; instead, he’s relentlessly touring, in summers with his children in tow, planning activities during the day and trying to avoid situations too awkward to have to explain later. If only he could not be so white that strangers would stop assuming he’d enjoy a racist joke. Now that’s awkward. He does realize, though, too, that as a guy, he doesn’t have to deal with the daily hassles women put themselves through with hair and makeup (reminding fans indirectly of a Tweet he made about manicures years ago that got him into an Internet kerfuffle and provided a plot point in season two of his TV Land series). Although he’s no longer making episodes of The Jim Gaffigan Show, Gaffigan himself continues to make jokes at his own expense about his relationship with his wife. She’s still the true boss, of course.
And all of his past jokes about food have come back to haunt him in the form of actual food, delivered as presents, which he’ll take with him – even if it means getting stopped by TSA at the airport, and the awkward encounters and conversations that ensue.
“I used to have all these jokes on doughnuts, and now sometimes when I do shows out of town, people will give me boxes of doughnuts, which makes me think I gotta start doing jokes about private jets.”
Just not yet.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
