I finally caught Chris Rock's "Never Scared" comedy special Monday night- some good stuff, but far from Rock’s best work. Yes, the best comic of his generation got quite a lot to measure up to, especially 1996’s “Bring the Pain” (the best standup special of the last two decades). But “Never Scared” suffered from too many dead spots, and Rock’s insistence on giving away all the best jokes during various talk show appearances.
Rock, much like his previous two specials, shared his best material when discussing celebrities at the beginning (a great riff on R. Kelly) and in dealing with man/woman relationship stuff at the end. But the difference between “Never Scared” and the other specials was a long dead section in the middle, in which most of Rock’s racial and political humor fell totally flat.
Unlike George Carlin’s brilliant two-months-after-9/11 “Complaints and Grievances,” Rock had nothing of substance to say about war and terrorism, and while I was expecting about ten minutes of dynamite Dubya material, all Rock could come up with was the months-old “Bush sent the girl up to Kobe’s room” joke).
And that was the biggest problem: has been all over the place in recent months doing print and TV interviews to promote his recent tour and the special, and by the time I saw the special I’d already heard all the best material, sometimes several times. And better done, too- the bit about “how come it only took two weeks to take over [Iraq]? You couldn't take over Baltimore in two weeks,” was a lot funnier when the punchline referred to the Bronx.
Posted by Stephen Silver at April 20, 2004 09:27 PM