It is appropriate that Jackie Mason The World According To Me opens with music from Masterpiece Theatre for this stand-up comedy CD is a masterpiece. (Well, duh, the show won a Tony Award, an Ace, an Emmy Award, and so on).
But also this from a comedy fan who never quite could get into Jackie Mason. Not that he is not a very good stand-up comic, he is, but that thick Yiddish accent of his, very evident on Jackie Mason Brand New, made the listening experience somewhat difficult. This is, of course, my fault but there you go.
The World According To Me is stand-up comic Jackie Mason at his very best and he knows it, “It certainly a pleasure to see me in person, ladies and gentlemen. . . . This show is such a hit, if you think it stinks, then you know there’s something wrong with you!” Amazingly, this is not bombast at all. This stand-up comedy CD is definitely a must have for any fan of comedy as it is a recording of a master wielding the full power of his acerbic yet funny as hell observational powers.
The opening track, One Man Show features Mason’s take on sex, hookers -and how saying you look like a hooker to a Jewish girl is a compliment but not such a good thing to say to an Italian girl-and, the standard Jewish comedy topic, psychiatry. Name a Jewish stand-up comic who doesn’t talk about psychiatrists and I’ll show you a comic with an identity crisis.
Track two, Beverly Hills is a very caustic take on the rich and famous. Mason’s bit on who owns a Mercedes and the reasons supposedly people give for not owning one is simply funny as hell. His take on Hollywood producers, who produce more business cards than actual product, is still fresh some twenty years later (as is this entire stand-up comedy CD).
Personal favorite on The World According To Me is The World And Politics. This is where you will find the classic Mason bit on the Israeli and Italian armies versus Italians and Jews you meet on a dark street. This track is also a bit dated with its references to current at the time American politics and Ronald Reagan -the usual risk a comic takes when doing topical material-but if you remember the jellybean cowboy, you’ll enjoy it. This is also were Mason is at his most in your face, ribbing the poor schmucks who happen to be sitting in the front row. Although these are biting bits, they are, somehow good-natured.
Jews and Gentiles is perhaps the kind of material Jackie Mason is most famous for and you get some 28 minutes of this very funny stuff. Mason also has fun comparing Jews and Poles, Jews and Blacks, Jews and Italians, well, basically, Jews and the entire planet. This track is one of the many reasons The World According To Me is the kind of stand-up comedy CD that will always be at the front of your collections as it is always a good listen and you always hear a joke you didn’t remember from the last time you listened to it.
The World According To Me
Jackie Mason
Stand-up comedy CD
Originally Released: Warner Brothers
Reissued: Jewish Music Group 2006
62 minutes
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