Demetri Martin
These Are Jokes
Stand-up Comedy DVD and CD
Comedy Central Records 2006
Distributed in Canada by Fusion III
www.demetrimartin.com

Demetri Martin is an original. He is even originally original and These Are Jokes, his Comedy Central stand-up comedy DVD and CD is a set you will watch and listen to time and again.

The talk of the town at the 2006 Just For Laughs Montreal International Comedy Festival, Martin is a very intelligent stand-up comic whose pithy one-liners are the kind you wish you had thought of (“Employee of the month is when you can be a winner and a loser at the same time”) and will definitely repeat to friends and family. Though These Are Jokes features family friendly material, both the comedy CD and DVD are best enjoyed by an intelligent, adult audience; not something that can be said about a lot of releases these days.

Although the Comedy Central Presents show on the These Are Jokes DVD is excellent, I cannot fathom why some of the material is bleeped. The twenty some minutes stand-up comedy set by Demetri Martin and the many extras feature some of the material on the CD but neither is a copy of the other.

The Comedy Central Presents Demetri Martin DVD show features a bizarre, funny, and charming bit where Martin talks about where his jokes come from. This involves a bit of a theatrical presentation with dancers, a musician, and Martin’s mom and sister, and is the most original comedy bit I have seen in a long, long time. A fun added feature is the commentary track with Martin though, like most commentary tracks, it is not particularly interesting.

The Demetri Martin stand-up comedy CD These Are Jokes is extremely funny and charming. Granted, charming is an odd qualifier for something like this but it is exactly that. Martin comes across as a very nice younger brother kind of guy with a very odd imagination.  Again, Martin is original with his material such as when he has a friend do the play-by-play for comic skits that normally would not translate well on a CD (These Jokes). Though the first track on this CD is something most people will be tempted to skip -an introduction by his grandma and a longish musical intro-you really should pay attention because Demetri Martin does a quick survey of stand up comedy with his “dating is difficult, Black people and white people are different, airplane food is unacceptable” that allows him to tell the audience he is a different kind of comic, something he proves time and again and in tracks like The Remix where he does a remix of some of his jokes. How many comics could get away with something like that?

If you like Steven Wright or Mitch Hedberg you are also going to like Demetri Martin. Just like these two stand-up comics, he is also excellent as one-liner observations that are surprising, true, and sometimes a little dark. Not that Martin is a Wright or a Hedberg, he is definitely a Demetri. What also sets him apart is his musical ability and his talent for mingling both comedy and music without doing one of those silly funny songs. Sames and Opposites is such a track. I liked the observations and jokes but was also impressed by the guitar tune he plays; it would be perfect for a western.

The only weak point on Demetri Martin These Are Jokes, his Comedy Central release CD and DVD are the last three tracks, The Grapes Song, The Wisdom Song, and the unlisted on the CD package The Johnny Story, especially the latter: I am sure Demetri’s grandmother is a nice lady and all but I really do not care about hearing her tell a story.

Demetri Martin These Are Jokes is a very original stand-up comedy CD and DVD set from Comedy Central. It is highly recommended to any fan who likes intelligent, witty, pithy, original, very original comedy.

Demetri Martin
These Are Jokes
Stand-up Comedy DVD and CD
Comedy Central Records 2006
Distributed in Canada by Fusion III

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