Christopher Titus The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour rocks, kills, blows you away, is brilliant, superb, sublime, stunning, intelligent, original, amazing, and astonishing. I’d find more adjectives but I can’t be bothered looking in a thesaurus. This 2 stand-up comedy CD set is something and comedy fan absolutely must add to his / her collection. Christopher Titus does not mince his words, does not pull a single punch, and his take on some very serious topics, such as 9/11, touchy feely priests, and bringing new life into this world is dead on, spares no one, and yet shows an intelligent, caring, humanistic approach that not only surprised this veteran comedy fan but actually managed to touch me while making me laugh.
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Poignant. This is the best word to describe Christopher Titus The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour. He is a stand-up comic who has an angst ridden, very critical but clear outlook on society and yet hopes for solutions because he wants to leave his kid a better world. Though every single routine on this 2 stand-up comedy CD set is rock solid, I was particularly impressed by the closing tracks on CD 2 where Titus talks about his father, his conflictual relationship with a hard drinking, hard man who nonetheless impressed his son with his take no prisoners approach to life. A lot of comedy comes from dysfunctional parents but material like Dad’s Last Wish, New Year’s Dinner, and My Father’s Funeral And The Casino Incident raises the bar to a height I doubt any comic will be able to even hope to reach in the next few years.
Titus has an uncanny ability to go from a ridiculous story like English Batman, about the guy who scaled the walls of Buckingham palace, to the darkly funny and just to surreal not to be true Sergeant Pepper routine about meeting the troops (and one soldier in particular) in Germany. That he can do this on a regular basis during the 90 minutes of this 2 comedy CD set is another reason why I am impressed by this release.
CD 1 of Christopher Titus The 5th Annual End of the World Tour opens with the premise of a lot of the material on this CD: he brought new life into this world a few days before 9/11 and his daughter “is learning her colors from the terrorist alert rainbow. She thinks Winnie the Pooh is Medium Threat….” The first few tracks of this stand-up comedy CD set are your basic but very funny routine about a comic’s wife giving birth but this is better than most similar routines.
Titus’ skill on this 2 CD set is the way he gradually gets darker and edgier so you do not notice the slow transition to some of the funniest and darkest stuff I have heard. I think the midget material in track 12 is a bit facile as it seems midgets are the flavor du jour in comedy but otherwise everything here is top notch.
The only criticism I have about The 5th Annual End Of The World Tour is how Titus wraps up. There is an attempt to tie it all up smartly on a fairly positive note with a message but it doesn’t really work. This may be because the comedian inserts some pretty standard stuff about Tupac that simply distracts. The real reason may be the material here is so strong trying it up in such a way is either impossible or Titus had not quite figured out how to slam dunk it at the end.
Christopher Titus
The Fifth Annual End Of The World Tour
Stand-up Comedy CD
2 CDs 90 minutes
Comedy Central Records 2007
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