Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Pete Holmes: I Am Not For Everyone’ On Netflix, In Defense Of Soft Dad Bods And Hard Dad Jokes

After releasing his past two hours of stand-up on HBO, where he also starred in his own show about Crashing into stand-up, Pete Holmes has made the leap to Netflix. Is that because he’s, like his title suggests, not for everyone, or because he wants the chance to go global and actually be for everyone? Or is that overthinking it?

PETE HOLMES: I AM NOT FOR EVERYONE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: So yes, Pete’s WarnerMedia bona fides go back a decade to his self-titled TBS late-night talk show, through his HBO series and previous two specials (2016’s Faces and Sounds, 2018’s Dirty Clean). Holmes also had a Comedy Central hour in 2013 (Nice Try, The Devil), so his Netflix hour marks his fourth special.

in between then and now, he starred in a short-lived CBS sitcom, How We Roll, based on a pro bowler Tom Smallwood, and enjoyed a recurring role as the love interest for Judge Abby Stone on the first-season revival of NBC’s Night Court.

For his Netflix debut, Holmes presents himself as very self-aware about his looks, his jokes and his religious beliefs, mashing them up playfully even at the concept that anything he did or said might make him a “little devil.” His longtime behind-the-camera collaborator, Oren Brimer, directed the hour, and All Things Comedy (the studio co-founded and run by Bill Burr and Al Madrigal) produced it.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Holmes gives off a “dirty” Brian Regan vibe. Affable, physical, but also sometimes graphic in his choice of material and language.

Memorable Jokes: Holmes came out of the same Chicago comedy scene at the same time as Kumail Nanjiani, and Holmes pokes fun at Nanjiani’s very public muscle-up for his role in Marvel’s Eternals, but mostly to draw a stark contrast between Nanjiani’s hard body and Holmes’s soft dadbod, which he says he’s too attached to, and besides, makes him more huggable. “I’ve hugged Kumail. There’s no healing. There’s no catharsis,” Holmes jokes.

If you think chastity is virtuous, Holmes will have you thinking differently as he recasts the idea of losing one’s virginity through marriage (which he did himself) by reframing it as him asking his future wife’s father for his consent specifically to deflower her, and then walking us through that concept into the wedding ceremony and the reception.

But that’s nothing compared to what happens later, when Holmes explains how he only lets his wife hear his real orgasm voice by acting it out in front of all of us.

Our Take: When Holmes proclaims “this is the irreverent bad-boy humor you’ve signed up for,” in the moment he’s referencing a revelation that while he has never done cocaine, Holmes is the type of person who will consume a drink in the store before he gets to the cashier.

Holmes checks in with the crowd often to take their emotional temperature, even preemptively warning them at one point that he’s going to present his take on the prostate check-up joke that he knows every male comedian must have upon hitting a certain age. In a lesser comic’s hands, this might feel more necessary or reflect upon the comedian’s insecurities. But by now, everyone attending the taping of a Pete Holmes special knows what to expect and gladly signed up for it. Holmes himself acknowledges the irony that any professional comedian would claim to be shocked that they might have offended anyone. It’s part of the gig. Humor is subjective. Not every joke lands for every audience member. Hence, ergo, I Am Not For Everyone.

His jokes about the absurdity of male genitals, or the hypocrisy of homophobia, aren’t exactly revolutionary truth in comedy bombs, so I dare say they aren’t for me.

But Holmes is a comedian in control of his craft, which he establishes in his opening gambit about saying “Happy New Year” long past January, only to juxtapose it with the idea of saying “Merry Christmas” and a misdirect meant to be ironic, even if Holmes says audiences in America’s Deep South take him a bit too much at his word on it.

Holmes also has always loved the sounds of words, indulging in rhyming wordplay. In this case, he not only imagines that telling one of his jokes would sound better in the tone and cadence of Jerry Seinfeld (he may be right), but also in asking a Jim about the gym, and as it turns out, he may get this trait from his mother, since she reportedly leaves him voicemails as Petey Sweetie.

Our Call: STREAM IT. At one point, Holmes suggests his jokes sometimes might not even be to his liking: “You ever hear someone say something you didn’t like and it was you?” The most telling thing he may have said in the whole hour might be a throwaway joke about wanting to buy a dildo. Why? Just check your Instagram account in the days that follow.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.