“A suicide note written by someone who is not suicidal is called an autobiography.” This joke is just a small example of how much Dane Cook has evolved as a comic on Isolated Incident, his latest Comedy Central stand-up comedy CD.

He of a million My Space friends has political material that is actually quite good. Even those who bought a Dane Cook voodoo doll and spend time sticking needles in it –something he addresses on Haters– will have to admit Isolated Incident is superior stand-up.

Dane Cook is a comic many others like to call superficial and facile. You have to admit the shtick works, he makes a lot of money, and he is funny. This last point is quite obvious on Isolated Incident. What may surprise about this comedy CD is how dark, serious, and smart the material is. You have to give Cook high marks for actually tackling the one joke about Obama nobody dares go for: assassination attempts. His take on language, Vernacular, is something “serious” comics would be proud of.

Carlin has a bit on deleting people off your list when they are dead, Cook has one on doing it when they are alive and goes back to the kind of lighter material that has made him successful. Also excellent is his routine where he addresses the people who hate him although the punchline is a bit facile.

This sort of segues to what the second half of Dane Cook Isolated Incident with its more standard material like Synching Feeling and WWYDI or What Would You Do If.

Interracial Tail, Remote Location, Peanut Butter Smack, and Big Shot which all feature very adult material might shock some of Cook’s million My Space friends. This is your basic college audience humor. It is, again, very funny. Role Play is a superb longer stand-up bit.

This Dane Cook stand-up comedy CD also features five bonus tracks of material deleted from the original performance with a few jokes that have appeared elsewhere such as War Gamer. Banter 3 is something that rarely happens in such a situation.

Isolated Incident is excellent.

Isolated Incident
Dane Cook
Stand-up Comedy CD
Comedy Central 2009

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