Daniel Tosh – Completely Serious

Daniel Tosh
Completely Serious
Stand-up Comedy DVD
Image Entertainment 2007
60 minutes plus extras

Daniel Tosh Completely Serious shows Tosh is everything but. The only moment I believed in this one-hour Comedy Central show is when the stand-up comic opened with “I’m really good.” There is nobody like Daniel Tosh:  He can surprise even a veteran comedy fan with how he aligns his jokes, and his punch lines amaze more often than not. If you like misdirection, he is one of the best, something this stand-up comedy DVD proves quite a few times. This stand-up comic’s fans will sometimes recognize material from True Stories I Made Up but most of  Completely Serious features new stuff.

A lot of what makes Daniel Tosh really funny and interesting is he has more than one stage persona. His material is whimsically dark, something basically impossible to achieve. I especially liked his take on the New Orleans washout -finally a different take on the topic-and his abortion material. He does not believe in the segue much and it serves him well as an element of surprise. A case in point is his switch from houses on the side of cliffs in California to a new Chili’s in Tulsa that closes with the ever popular question and answer “Do you know who likes to get fisted? Sock puppets.”  This stand-up comedy release is darkly whimsical indeed.

I also like the way Tosh deconstructs the comedy routine from time to time with not so subtle reminders all this is an act. “My girlfriend is Korean for this joke ….” I do not know of many comics who draw attention to the artifice stand-up comedy really is and I know even less who not only neatly get away with it but also make it part of the pay-off.

I am impressed by how Tosh manages to be all over the place comedy wise: the Price Is Right, sex with a pterodactyl, abortion, gay marriage, abortion, the garden of Eden and Eve and the apple, one-legged women, segregation, clown BJs, and so on.

The one weak moment on Completely Serious, the Daniel Tosh DVD, has nothing to do with the comic and everything to do with the director who felt he had to get a shot of the black guy in the audience reacting positively to a joke about blacks. Pussy. To get really picky, Tosh’s Price Is Right routine suffers a bit from his misnaming the showcases the showdown: there are two showcases and 1 showdown.

Daniel Tosh Completely Serious, features some five short deleted scenes from his Comedy Central special and other stuff.

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