Dave Attell hasn’t released a new solo stand-up special in a decade, although he has influenced the joke-writing and cadence of other comedians his own age or younger for at least the past two decades. Clocking in at barely 40 minutes, is Attell’s first solo project for Netflix short and sweet but still filling, or does Hot Cross Buns leave you wanting more? Perhaps both!
The Gist: Netflix viewers aren’t complete strangers to Attell, as he joined Jeff Ross to host a three-episode stand-up series in 2018 called Bumpin’ Mics that I proclaimed “hands down the funniest special of the year.”
But Attell hasn’t fronted a stand-up special on his own since 2014’s Road Work for Comedy Central.
Now here he is with a briskly paced performance filmed both inside Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco as well as outside near Fisherman’s Wharf.
Memorable Jokes: Attell doesn’t waste any time before slinging zingers, opening with self-deprecating barbs such as “I hope I can live up to that four-man standing ovation” and “even though I look like I run my own escape room.”
And then he just keeps on firing.
He’s got gags tied to the moment, such as one poking fun at the trendiness of hard seltzer, followed by another that reminds us how staunchly anti-abortion Texas has become. He’s got lines for tourist spots near and far to that audience’s heart, calling SeaWorld “The Aquatic Auschwitz” and noting how Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco offers “a trifecta” of poop to awkwardly step into should you choose to trek through that waterside attraction.
Other jokes just fly by: One of my favorites, perfectly constructed, describes food-delivery guys as our “third responders.” The tag? “These guys are heroes delivering heroes to heroes.”
Even moments that seem to catch himself off-guard, such as his cell phone alarm going off with the blare of a siren 14 minutes in, are merely opportunities to hit us with another hook.
If you’ve seen Attell before, then you know that the guy who who hosted Dave’s Old Porn for Showtime in 2011 will come quick with plenty of sexual innuendos and below-the-belt banter about the Boy Scouts, too. But now he quips about porn as if he’s truly a dirty old man: “I only watch it til the library closes, ok?”
And then after a half-hour, Attell pulls out a recorder and begins to play the instrument you may have learned first in elementary school, and even gets the crowd involved, conducting a cacophony that fulfills his joke prophecy that “I know this looks like a talent show at a shelter.”
And before the final credits have finished, you will indeed hear the familiar notes of “Hot Cross Buns.”
Our Take: Something something Nero fiddled while Rome burned so Attell could blow into a recorder while America crumbled.
It takes a lot of chutzpah to edit your stand-up set down to just 35 minutes, only to keep the cameras rolling while walking through the audience to gently roast them individually, then declare that since he’s still almost three minutes shy of fulfilling his Netflix contract, he’s going to play his recorder for the seals down on the docks while a timer onscreen counts down until he has fulfilled his obligation.
But Attell continues to operate on another level from his peers.
Whereas seemingly everyone else is chasing new fans on TikTok, Attell still proudly texts his friends on a flip phone. When he jokes, “since I’m the only comic in America who doesn’t have a podcast, this is my moment,” it’s funny because it’s almost kind of true!
As he was when he starred in his own Comedy Central series, Insomniac, in the early 2000s, Attell remains quick with the quips. Even if he’s older and sober now, he’s still multi-layered in how he presents himself and his material. Draped in blacks, grays and charcoals, a jacket over a hoodie over a shirt, his head topped a baseball hat over a knit cap, Attell just keeps laying it on. When he mentions caring for his 87-year-old mother, he gets away with a throwaway line (“you don’t have to applaud. she’s not trans”) that so many other comedians might use as a starting point to veer too far off-course, but in his hands is just another line to keep the audience off-balance. Within moments, he’s got us wondering instead why he’d set up an OnlyFans for her.
Attell introduces several of his jokes as offensive or naughty or transgressive (“I don’t care if lose my entire North Korean fanbase”), but ultimately so few of them actually are worth protesting because of just how well he has crafted not only the construction of the jokes themselves, but also in how ludicrous it sounds when he delivers them. With Attell, there’s no confusion. Just comedy.
Our Call: STREAM IT. So many of the men who have come up in comedy in the 21st century have sounded like either Attell or Mitch Hedberg, and although those two voices might seem like two completely different tracks to follow, they’re more alike than not in terms of their standout ability to write and tell jokes that sneak up on the audience. Attell’s jokes may hit harder and arrive at a faster pace, but we should be grateful that he can keep churning out punchlines at that ferocious pace of his. Because there’s nobody quite as talented, as proficient or as funny as Attell at doing it.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
