Mitch Fatel – Public Displays of Perversion

There are times in life when you have to fess up and admit that you were wrong.  For me, the rising popularity of Mitch Fatel presents one of those very times.  I remember first hearing Mitch Fatel’s stand-up about 12 or so years ago.  At the time, I had a couple of thoughts.  My first thought was that this guy is incredibly funny.  My second thought was that Fatel’s “stage persona” was going to be short-lived.  Fatel is very soft spoken, and portrays an innocently naive person who is infatuated with sex and women.  I thought one of two things was going to happen.  Either people would quickly learn that this was just a clever ruse and, over time, they would find it more and more difficult to accept this character.  Or, more likely, even if people continued to accept this as Fatel’s stage persona, he would eventually be too old to convincingly present this character to an audience.  Yet, here we are, all these years later … Fatel is now in his forties, he is as popular as ever, and his entire act is still centered around this naive guy who loves boobies.  Well, folks, when you are wrong, you are wrong.  And, I was wrong.

This  stand-up comedy CD/MP3 album called Public Display of Perversion will be Mitch Fatel’s fourth special.

Fatel’s act has become smarter over time, but his act remains largely the same.  So much the same, in fact, that a large percentage of material on this album is almost identical to the material on his 2009 special “Mitch Fatel is Magical.”  In fact, this album opens with repeat material (in similar fashion to Amy Schumer’s newest release, Mostly Sex Stuff).  Unlike Schumer’s special, though, the next several tracks on Fatel’s new album also contains large chunks of repeat material.  While some of the material has been tweaked a bit, with slightly different setups, punchlines worded a bit differently, or new tags added on to the end, the bits are the same.  This was hugely disappointing.

That having been said, I definitely do not want to give the impression that this new album contains no new material.  It does contain a decent amount of brand new material.  But, the special “Mitch Fatel is Magical” was released in 2009.  With three years in between recordings, it is sort of insulting to have so much repeat material on the new album.  It is this fact that makes this album sort of a dud.  By way of example, Gary Gulman recently released an audio album called “No Can Defend.”  Very shortly thereafter, he released a video special called “In This Economy.”  Due to the incredibly close proximity of the release dates, I knew going into “In This Economy” that there would likely be a lot of repeat material.  And there was.  A ton.  In Fatel’s case, though, a three year gap in between releases certainly leads to expectations that it will be an entirely new show.  I do not think anyone could realistically argue that such an expectation was unreasonable and, when that expectation was not met, this album felt less than half-baked.

Public Display of Perversion is funny, and if you have never seen Mitch Fatel is Magical, you will probably enjoy this album quite a bit.  But, if you already own Mitch Fatel is Magical, there is significantly less to enjoy in this new one.  This album is likely only for the hardcore fans that have to own everything Fatel puts out there.  If you are just a casual fan and already own Mitch Fatel is Magical, this one can easily be skipped.

Public Displays of Perversion
Mitch Fatel
Stand-up Comedy CD and MP3 Album
BSeenMedia 2013

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