Post mortem releases are always caveat emptor. This is not the case for Mitch Hedberg Do You Believe In Gosh? Though the tracks on this Comedy Central CD were not meant to be released, the comedy is excellent and so is the sound.
In fact, because the material in this recording was not meant to be unified into a disc there is a certain free wheeling tone to it that really goes well with Hedberg’s style.
If you want to sound really erudite when it comes to stand-up comedy, the best way is to drop the idea that Hedberg was a deconstructionist comedian: He drew attention to the artifice with comments such as “I have to work on this one but trust me it’s hilarious” when the material did not work to his satisfaction. The first two tracks on Do You Believe In Gosh are about the Improv itself and a very odd explanation as to the existence of the brick wall behind comics in comedy clubs.
If you want to sound smart about stand-up, all you have to say is Mitch Hedberg was great and very original. Hedberg ‘s Bad Lands, Train Station Hotel, and Headless Horseman bits are some of the most surreal material I have heard.
Another advantage to an off the cuff recording such as Do You Believe in Gosh is you get a couple of tracks with a heckler. Hedberg manages to nail him without being aggressive about it; something most comics cannot quite do.
Mitch Hedberg was great at the one-liner and there are quite a few excellent ones here. My favorite sequence involves water and is on track 8 of this stand-up comedy CD.
Do You Believe In Gosh will remind many of us what a great loss to comedy and the world Mitch Hedberg’s early death is.
Most interesting is the insert with this stand-up comedy CD which features pages from Hedberg’s notebook where you can see the observations that lead to some of the material here.
Do You Believe In Gosh?
Mitch Hedberg
Stand-up Comedy CD
Recorded 2005
Comedy Central Records 2008
40 minutes
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