Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Neal Brennan is full of great ideas. Some of them you’ve seen – he co-created and co-wrote Chappelle’s Show for Comedy Central – and some of them you haven’t – he also suggested Jimmy Fallon hire The Roots for his late-night TV band, and helped Seth Meyers write his now-infamous speech for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. You know, the one with all the jokes about the guy who is supposed to be our president for the next four years.
But back to Brennan. Neal, the youngest of 10 kids (his brother, Kevin, also is a stand-up comedian), has hosted TV shows in front of the camera and directed them from behind it.
And for his first Netflix special as a solo performer, Brennan has decided to mesh all of his ideas, observations and jokes into a hybrid, presenting one-liners, stand-up routines and “emotional stuff” from three separate microphones and spotlights on the stage. The opening credits illustrate the concept behind Neal Brennan: 3 Mics, but if you weren’t paying attention, then you’ll slowly figure it out as theater blackouts end each time with Brennan standing at a different mic.
Now with both time and distance, sitting farther and further away to watch Brennan’s show once more, I can safely say my perspective on his 65-minute performance remains much the same.
Behind the one-liner mic, Brennan reads from cards witty observations that, if he typed them on Twitter @nealbrennan, you’d likely RT them, but not necessarily pin any of them.
Behind the stand-up mic, you quickly recognize the incisiveness of his writing that helped fueled Chappelle’s Show to such great heights of cultural observation, whether he’s pointing out how we reward cheaters in our society if we like them or their accomplishments enough, or how we actually encourage bad behavior in the first place. Or the creepy behaviors of men and women in dating. Or how racial politics hasn’t gotten much better in the decade since Chappelle’s Show went off the air, although Brennan does offer a solution to end racism once and for all. “From here on out, we just gotta have nothing but mixed babies,” he says, adding later: “You can’t hate what you don’t know what they are.”
Behind the “emotional stuff” microphone, that’s where Brennan digs deep into his own psyche – the three segments he devotes to depression, love, and his father, respectively – and also where he finds his deepest comedic connections.
Because writing a cult classic movie when you’re 23 (Half-Baked) after already scoring writing gigs for MTV (Singled Out) and Nickelodeon (All That) may bring you cash and prizes, but it does nothing to lighten the load of the “weighted vest” of depression, Brennan says. Trying to fill the void with love doesn’t do the trick, either. The great lesson of Brennan’s adult life, it seems, has been learning to live outside the shadow of his biological family as well as his comedic one.
“There’s no position too much safer than being Dave Chappelle’s comedy writing partner,” he says. “I would say that being on a writing team with Dave is like being on a basketball team with Michael Jordan. You just win more,” Brennan says, adding: “Don’t get me wrong. I am Scottie Pippen. And not just because we have the same facial structure, either.”
There’s a requisite line added to Brennan’s show early on about his choice of Netflix for releasing this effort: “Here’s why I like Netflix. Because Netflix, you get a rating on Netflix, one through five, but you know the person giving the rating is a certain class of person who can afford $8 a month. Or at least know someone who can afford…” as the crowd laughs to fill the blank for themselves.
Although Brennan’s IMDB credits are lengthy as a writer, producer and director already, it wasn’t until after Chappelle’s Show ended that he found himself signing up for stand-up comedy open mics, leading a friend to joke that he’s pursuing a Benjamin Button career timeline.
If that’s still the case, then at least Brennan will become even more honest and idealistic in his future comedy projects. He still may be “dying to hide,” but as he reminds himself: “Win or lose: Can’t (hide).”
And that’s something we all can applaud.
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.
