I finally got around to watching the two Vegas semi-finals episodes of "Last Comic Standing 2" from earlier in the week. I'd read on Throwing Things that there was controversy over the selections, prompting celebrity judges Drew Carey and Brett Butler to storm off in disgust.
As it turns out, the controversy turned out to be much ado about nothing. At least, the producers were able to make it look that way. Carey and Butler apparently thought that they (and the other two celebrity judges) had the sole power to decide who made it "into the House." However, the producers also voted, and Carey appeared mollified when he learned that the actual broadcast would explain this fact.
Well, it did explain it, but only in small print that crawled quickly across the screen at the end of the telecast . . . .
Anyway, of the first group of ten comics, I was glad to see Gary Gulman advance, was sad to see Dan Adhoot not advance, and was sad to see Bonnie McFarlane advance. The others didn't make too much of an impression on me either way (except that I thought Kerry Louise looks kind of like Jennifer Garner). Maybe the problem for Adhoot was that he didn't have too much new material, and that might have sank him in the eyes of the producers. (Then again, last year's winner, Dat Phan, had pretty much two jokes: (1) making fun of his mother's accent; and (2) being told he looks like a martial artist -- based on his pissing technique.) McFarlane was plain annoying and seemed to want to coast on her looks.
Of the second group of ten comics, I was not surprised to see Todd Glass advance, since he's had a lot of camera time so far and seems like he'll be a "personality" in the House. I was glad to see Jon Heffron advance, as his set piece about wishing you could get out of meetings by whining like little kids was quite funny. I also thought it was a good move to advance Corey Holcombe, who had good edgy humor. None of the others made much of an impression on me.
It makes sense, I suppose, to have the producers involved in the selection process. This isn't a pure "joke-off" competition a la "American Idol" -- it's got that "living in the House" aspect as well. (So does "American Idol," but actually never see any of the living in the house and it's not part of the show.) Therefore, the best candidates are not necessarily the funniest ones; they're the ones who will bring in the best ratings. (Why not just bring in the best looking male and female comics? Well, this isn't on Fox. . . .)
One of the comics who advanced from the second night--Tammy Pescatelli--used to be the TV commercial spokesperson for Hy Vee foods here in Iowa. This was back in the early or mid 1990s. She'd stand in front of a faux brick wall backdrop (like the Improv) with the Hy Vee logo on it and tell jokes about green beans and grocery stores. It was one of those unbelievably irritating campaigns that made you run for the clicker to turn the channel everytime an ad came on because you just couldn't stand to watch one more second of it (if you saw her performance last week, you know what I mean). It must have been effective, though, because the campaign ran for two or three years, as I recall.
Posted by: tom | June 21, 2004 at 06:58 AM
I thought Piscatelli was not as good as Kathleen Madigan (who made it into the House) but better than Bonnie McFairlane, Sue Costello, or Kerry Louise. . . .
Posted by: Tung Yin | June 21, 2004 at 08:38 AM
What a sad fall for Sue Costello. A few seasons ago she had her own sitcom on FOX (it was awful, by the way, one of the worst shows I've ever seen on TV). Now she's using this show as her own Northern League, desperately trying to get one last shot at the big time.
Posted by: tom | June 21, 2004 at 12:03 PM