Vanishing America

Rich Hall is one of the great unappreciated comedians of our time. His comedy is smart , never vulgar, always funny. In this episodic HBO special, Rich realizes that he never got the Wilt Chamberlain basketball and hoop that he earned as a seed salesman when he was a kid. He saw the ad in the comic books, sold the seeds, but never got the prize. So like a revenge movie, he is determined to get what is properly his. As he states in the film "its not the destination, its the journey" and Rich has some amusing adventures as he travels on a variety of transportation devices in search of his Wilt Chamberlain basketball and hoop. There is a very amusing sequence with Rich playing "Heart and Soul" on pieces of a gas station bell hose that predated the sequence in "Big" by at least a year. It's pretty much the same bit, down to using the same song. I wonder if they stole this bit from Rich or if he did some punch up work on the "Big" script. It's a shame Hall had to go to Britain where his comedy is more appreciated than it is in his own country.

I am devastated to see that "Rich Hall's Onion World" is not included in the IMDB, but Vanishing America is just another title for the same brand of scathingly hilarious humor. Rich Hall was the Tom Green of the mid-late 80s, but with a smaller following and a much smarter sense of humor. Comedy Central should air this and "Onion World" and show how cutting edge their programming used to be. Other than dated political references, I do not think Rich Hall is timely at all. People might be shocked it is 15-9 years old. A must see for anyone who enjoys frantic, smart, improvisational humor involving a brilliant frantic comedian meeting the public.