Jim Gaffigan: King Baby DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

For those who follow stand-up comedy, there are few stand-ups out there these days that have found as much success as the hilarious and exceedingly pale Jim Gaffigan. While he might not have parlayed his stand-up success into a big-time Hollywood career like say a Dane Cook, it's likely because, well, Gaffigan is lazy and makes no bones about it in his latest special King Baby, another hilarious addition to the Gaffigan canon of material.

While a lot of stand-up's today cram their routines with political riffs or edgy, loud-mouthed or foul-mouthed antics, Gaffigan has made a career by observing the ordinary thinks in life like food (Hot Pockets, anyone?) or growing up in Indiana. I've never seen a show where Gaffigan was bleeped for content and he's practically one of the only stand-up's around that can be consistently funny without using the crutch of curse words that many comics use as a third leg in their material. Of course, I'm not knocking any of these foul-mouthed comics by any means, but I'd have to think it would be harder to consistently maintain a hilarious routine without profanity, but Gaffigan has made an art form out of it.

It is true, that his act can be a bit bland at times, perhaps suffering just a tad from refraining from naughty words, but in this latest special, while I might not have been laughing out loud the entire time, there was a smile on my face for the entire 71 minutes of this DVD, which, in fact, is about a half hour longer than the Comedy Central version that aired at the end of March. It's almost ironic that Gaffigan has become so well known for his work on Comedy Central (not to mention the Pale Force cartoons on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, of which we do get a few bonus episodes on the special features), since Comedy Central thrives on selling extended and uncensored DVD's of their TV shows and stand-up specials, and while this is extended, there isn't even a need to label this uncensored because they didn't have to censor it at all in the original airing.

In this special, that was the last show of his Sexy Tour, filmed at at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas, Gaffigan doesn't really talk much about Indiana as he had in the past, but he does certainly talk a lot about food - in particular, bacon, with a big chunk of the show devoted to his favorite food - and he also riffs on parenting and his own laziness. To someone that has, for some reason, never heard of Jim Gaffigan before reading this, the act might sound like one of the most boring hours of stand-up known to man, but Gaffigan has become so successful because he finds that little edge in these ordinary things that makes them so funny, and his routine is incredibly identifiable by all age groups across the board. While a lot of comics seem to be up on the stage to just spout off how they feel about the world in a crazy and raucous manner, Gaffigan just slightly gives us a nod to everyday things, with his own unique spin on them and it's always a blast to watch.

If you're a fan of Jim Gaffigan, this new special King Baby surely deserves to be in your DVD collection because it's another hilarious hour and change with one of the funniest (and cleanest) guys on the stand-up circuit today.

We get these bonus features started with some of Jim Gaffigan's side projects, starting with Pale Force. We get three of these episodes, that aired on Late Night With Conan O'Brien (which I have to imagine would continue on his The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, that starts off with Sidekicks, which has O'Brien recounting some woeful tales of being a sidekick at a sidekick support group meeting, with other famous sidekicks like Robin, Chewbaca, Agent Scully, Bert and many more. Land of Robots is the second episode they find themselves pitted against robots and Pale Christmas with tons of Christmas references that are rather hilarious in a send-off from It's a Wonderful Life. These episodes are only about three or four minutes long and they're pretty dang funny.

Four episodes of Our Massive Planet are next and, well, I just don't get this stuff. It's really just a bunch of nature footage with Gaffigan and some other dude named Andy having random conversation about animals. There isn't much that's terribly funny here and we get about seven and a half minutes total out of these four episodes that I frankly just don't get/think are funny.

Next up we get a Never Aired British Interview with Gaffigan, and it's pretty damn funny because it's not a real interview and a damn funny thing where Gaffigan keeps talking about how sexy he is and stuff like that. It's a six and a half minute interview that's well worth watching to see another (albeit fake) side of Gaffigan.

An XM/Sirius Interview is next and this is a real interview, which is kind of funny since it's a radio interview... and it's on video. We get some interesting things about his background from Indiana and him moving to New York and struggling as a stand-up for years and it's pretty interesting to hear his insights on his career and acting and stuff like that. It's a very cool 25-minute interview that if you'll surely dig if you're a fan of this awesome comic.

Next up is Atlanta: Meet and Greet on Demand, and these are some bonus materials that they shot for Comedy Central when they aired part of his Sexy Tour and we get some stuff from the fans before the show and the fan stuff is intercut with more fake interview goodness. It's an awesome 10-minute spot that is worth checking out.

The Sexy Tour Friday Night Stand Up is next and there are these little minute-long bits that they presumably played during Friday Night Stand Up on Comedy Central. We get nine of these total and they're some nice little spots. The last thing we get are the same sort of little minute spots, but they're for his Beyond the Pale tour. We get 11 total here and most are just as funny as the previous ones.

The film is presented in the widescreen format, although it doesn't list the aspect ratio. Oh well.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound or the Dolby Digital Stereo format.

Pretty funny stuff, actually. The front just has a shot of Gaffigan set against the clouds and, well, looking pale, and several little miniscule Gaffigan's kind of working on his head like an Indy pit crew. The back has a funny little quote from Conan O'Brien and a description of the show and a small bonus features box, and more of the mini-Gaffigan's working on that as well. Nice work here.

Jim Gaffigan: King Baby is yet another wonderful stand-up special from one of the most successful stand-up comics around and bona fide proof that clean comedy can actually be funny after all.