Greg Behrendt is That Guy from That Thing DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

I like a good stand-up show every once in awhile, just like most red-blooded Americans, but I can't claim to be a devout connoisseur of the craft, meaning there are many stand-up comedians that I have admittedly never heard of. One of them was Greg Behrendt and, little did I know that he is not only a stand-up, but also the author of the book He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys (which was shortened to the not-so-short He's Just Not That Into You for the movie) and some other book called It's Called a Break-Up 'Cause It's Broken. He's also an actor and, for a time, and has even had his own talk show as well. What an enterprising dude! Well, Behrendt must be between book deals or acting gigs because he goes back to stand-up with this new DVD Greg Behrendt: That Guy From That Thing, which is fairly funny but doesn't seem to have much of a comedic voice.

This hour-long DVD, which was filmed in San Jose, CA, does have plenty of humorous bits throughout the disc, and Behrendt surely is a gifted comedic writer, doing a wonderful job of tying in earlier bits from the show and, in general, making for a cohesive hour of entertainment. He waxes on such subjects as dudes at the airport who are dressed for the destination they're going to, the magical stylings of Criss Angel... and how he's kind of a dick when he performs magic to the public, the "man-purse," hybrid crackers and much more. While a good majority of these bits are rather funny, it seemed that Behrendt was just kind of all over the place in terms of his comedic style and/or voice. At times he seemed to be trying to channel Brian Regan, other, more manic, expletive-filled times, Denis Leary and, while many/most comics try to maintain a certain style throughout their act (or at least that's how it seems, anyway), Behrendt just seemed to be using a mixed tape of styles instead of one distinct style.

He doesn't talk a lot about his books, and, while he certainly has to touch on the matter (I know I would...), the whole show isn't wholly about his area of expertise, which is getting OUT of relationships, which seems to be ironic now since he is married and has two daughters. His jokes really do run the gamut, though, which is appreciated because once I saw on the DVD cover that he wrote that He's Just Not That Into You book, I kind of feared for an hour of pearl-dispensing wisdom dressed up as a comedy routine, which it surely wasn't. One of the best bits of the whole show deals with how his wife said her "free pass" would be with The Office's John Krasinski, which he had no problem with... until he actually saw him in person, and he tells of this hilarious scene at the gym where he keeps trying to one-up Krasinski, without his knowledge, of course. He even pulls a little bit of a Jim Gaffigan on us with this nice bit about "the flip-side cracker" that is a pretzel on one side and a cheese cracker on the other side. All in all, it is a very diverse set of material, and while there are bits that don't work quite as well as others, it's still a solid show.

Greg Behrendt: That Guy From That Thing is an above-average stand-up disc that offers some pretty big laughs at times, but other times has you wondering what kind of comic Behrendt is trying to me.

We don't' get much here, but we start off with some Deleted Scenes, four of them in all. The first one has Behrendt talking about people confusing him for Ty Pennington - which is odd since I don't think he looks much like him. The second one incorporates the title of this DVD and then goes into this rather unfunny bit about handshakes that oddly turns into a rant about boxers that goes kind of all over the place, but ends with a bit that ties into the first deleted scene. It's kind of funny from time to time, but damn he's just all over the place on this bit. This last one starts out with him talking about his talk show that was canceled, and then goes into thing about treating people right. Weird. There's some stuff worth seeing here but they were definitely worthy of deletion.

The only other feature we get here are some "Ask Greg" Webisodes, and we get six of these total. These are some things that apparently he has on his official website where people send in their questions for Greg to answer them. He seems like a much different person on these, more reckless, etc. and I'm not sure how old these are, (he seems much younger) but this Greg seems a lot different in these. They can be pretty funny at times and they're only a few minutes long apiece, so they're worth a watch.

This comedy special is displayed in the widescreen format, in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio, enhanced for 16x9 televisions.

You can hear this funnyman's jokes just fine in the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound format.

This is probably what DVD's would look like if they existed in the 1950s. The front cover has Behrendt's name in that proper 50s cursive format with a retro crown-ish logo above it and we also have a shot of Behrendt and this weird blue-green panel design over his image (which is also displayed in the brief title sequence on the DVD), and even a "Live Comedy" sign at the bottom, that you would expect to light up in cheap neon like in the 50s. The back continues the blue-green panel design with some different shots of Behrendt and a synopsis in VERY tiny print, along with some smaller images at the bottom and a tiny bonus features listing along with the tech specs and modified billing block. I can't say that I've seen a design like this before.

Greg Behrendt: That Guy From That Thing doesn't revolutionize stand-up and can be a tad tedious and all over the place at times, but the laughs we do get here are big ones and this is worth at least once look-see from any stand-up fan.