Parts of The Top Part are tops. The rest is quite good. This fairly clean, adult oriented stand-up comedy CD has lots of funny routines and a couple of tracks that are very, very original.
In spite of that John Mulaney himself does not come across as particularly different from most other stand-up comics. This is better than a comic who stands out with material that does not but it is not good for your sitcom potential.
The best routine on John Mulaney’s The Top Part is Law and Order and Mr. Jerry Orbach. The set-up about getting the feeling he is in a Law and Order episode is pretty good, Mulaney’s observation about standard scenes in the show are funny, but it is the follow-up on how the late Jerry Orbach donated his eyes and they were implanted in two different people who later accidentally meet that makes this bit a classic.
John Mulaney can also make standard comedy premises like drinking too much quite funny, as he does with the opening bit on blacking out. Even his airplane bit on “junior airlines” is quite good. A lesser bit on the movie Scarface is saved by the follow-up on how people with amnesia act in the movies. Not bad, not great is the biographical high school basketball routine.
What really makes this stand-up comedy CD worth your while are routines like the bit on drag queens and Goths, the chase through the subway bit, and the very odd but funny routine on math and King Solomon.
John Mulaney closes The Top Part very strong with The Salt and Pepper Diner, a biographical tale having to do with a jukebox and Tom Jones. This scene belongs as is in one of those movies about high school losers and pranks they pull.
This is a very entertaining stand-up comedy CD.
The Top Part
John Mulaney
Stand-up Comedy CD
Comedy Central Records 2009
Related Posts
- 84Fans of jokes about growing up will most definitely enjoy this comedy CD.
- 83This Carlin CD is just Bitching and Moaning By An Old Fart.