Omar Mindorff

Allow me to try to attempt a neutral take on this Jim Gaffigan special. It's difficult to tell whether it's the public's general increase in sensitivity or it's Gaffigan's fading comedy style are really where this special really hits a wall. Going into the opening minutes, one would expect some incredibly dark humor - it's Jim Gaffigan - get a grip. But where this show really sinks is not in the absence of good old timey' wholesome Bob Hope humor. It's in the complete lack of both continuity-in-storytelling or observational humor. He really is just feeling around in the dark for laughs. Irrespective of whether the audience's volume level is edited - you can tell from Gaffigan's own reaction that the jokes just aren't hitting. It is difficult to tell whether it's because he went too-dark-too-quickly. But it's evident to me that even if just a handful of people in the audience had a covid death in the family, those attending there with them probably weren't laughing either. [I feel] comics shouldn't feel limited in any way in their subject choice for jokes. But going in that raw to ad hominem attacks on covid fatality individuals means he didnt grasp his audience, he didn't hold them. Believe me, I was quick to get vaccinated back during the pandemic so I am admittedly biased. But I knew people all across the opinion spectrum on the issue. Unfortunately I spent most of my time during this special cringing hoping the next joke wouldn't cut too-deeply for the diehard Gaffigan fan in the room whose father died (being one of the people Gaffigan made reference to.) If you hold out long enough he eventually gets into jokes that laugh. But committing the modern equivalent of dead-G.I. jokes (I.e. no one, nowhere, is going to find it funny after what they just went though) sullies the room before he has a chance to get going.