Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster’ On Netflix, Pondering The Pandemic While Pretending It Has Passed

After brief dalliances with VOD and Amazon Prime Video, comedian Jim Gaffigan has returned to Netflix for his newest hour-plus of stand-up, which is his sixth special available on the streaming giant. But that’s not what makes him a Comedy Monster. That’s just his inside voice mocking him and others again. Right?!

JIM GAFFIGAN: COMEDY MONSTER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: For Gaffigan’s return to Netflix, the stand-up comedian and actor takes the comedy club aesthetic (brick wall and piano) and blows it up to a much bigger stage in Minneapolis.
Will he joke about the pandemic? Yes.
Will he use his inside voice to express his self-awareness? Of course!
Will he also find some everyday aspects of our life, pandemic notwithstanding, and drill down into their premises to tell us what makes them ridiculous? You know it.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Nicer than Jerry Seinfeld but much less physical than Brian Regan, that’s the observational comedy lane that Gaffigan drives down.
Memorable Jokes: If the pandemic means an end to parades, what does this mean for marching bands?
Gaffigan answers that question by leaning in hard on the history of marching bands from when they first marched armies into wars to the point where he’ll wonder if they’ll war with him over his jokes. He’s never not been self-deprecating, willing to make fun of himself, in this hour about all of the various people or even not-people that fans suggest look just like him. He’s also still a devout Catholic, but willing to joke about his faith just as much as any other. There are longer asides into the natures of motorcycle riders and bicyclists, society’s biases toward attractive people, and as always, some good-natured jokes about being married and having five children.
Our Take: There’s something about his opening line, after thanking the audience that just hits a little harder this week. “Remember when we thought the pandemic was over?”
Plenty of comedians are making jokes about the pandemic. How can they not? The masks, the regulations, the varied safety precautions. Gaffigan covers those areas, but also reminds us that the biggest surprise of the past two years has been realizing how many crazy people live among us. “It was like a gender reveal for insanity.” It’s one thing to befriend someone who thinks Bigfoot is real; quite another if you think Tom Hanks eats babies. Gaffigan will stick with the former and drop the latter. Sorry, Q.
For a long while, too many people lumped Gaffigan into a category called “clean comedy” just because he hardly seemed to swear onstage and because he was open about his faith. Some fans only realized he had any edge at all after Trump became president, when Gaffigan’s Twitter feed became more sincerely serious.
But he’s always had a bit of an edge. Just go back to his comparing fo tabloid news to junk food in his McDonald’s routine from 2012’s Mr. Universe. Or take his signature conceit of the back-talking inner voice, like a ventriloquist’s dummy serving him hard truths about the jokes he just told. There’s always been a lot more to him than mere jokes about his laziness, his love of food, or his pale skin. You’ve just had to be paying attention.
The harder edges tend to emerge in this hour between the longer bits.
The hardest? In describing a family trip to Hawaii and how much he stands out, even among tourists, Gaffigan gets a big cheer about sunburning, some laughs over zip lining and snorkeling, but then, he also has this rejoinder to native Hawaiians telling American tourists they stole the islands: “Don’t know how to break it to you, but we stole all the land.”
He has a slightly lighter touch on billionaires who don’t pay taxes, while still getting his political points across with a simple question: “Who’s your favorite billionaire-pretend astronaut?”
And he points out how Instagram legitimizes stalking and creepy behavior, which almost got him into a heap of trouble in real life. Thankfully, the only truly creepy thing about Gaffigan remains that inner voice of his.
Our Call: STREAM IT.

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.

Watch Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster on Netflix