Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale

Even though Jim Gaffigan often jokes that he hates to work, I believe that memorizing thousands of jokes and their timing and delivery has to be hard, like working. On average, Gaffigan films one comedy special every other year, and also tours about 300 cities a year, based on what he has said in his specials. That is a lot of work too.

In between the comedy specials and the tour schedule, Gaffigan has to write about 75 minutes of new material. I would not mind seeing him do a show with the best bits from all of his old specials, like the Waffle House, Hot Pockets, IHOP stuff, and the bear stories. Gaffigan has put together lots of great sequences of jokes over the years.

Unfortunately, in Dark Pale, Gaffigan seems to be hitting a bit of burn-out. It has to be hard to be funny when you are tired of touring 300 cities a year for many many years, getting on endless series of airplanes, drinking at an endless series of airports while waiting to get on airplanes, staying at thousands of hotels, etc. I don't know Jim Gaffigan personally, but I know I would be tired of such a schedule, if that was my life and career.

I don't know if Jim Gaffigan can ever get back to when he thought of comedy as something fresh and funny in his mind. I hope he can. I love a lot of his old specials, like Quality Time, King Baby, Obsessed, Beyond the Pale, Mr. Universe, etc. I look forward to his next special, and hopefully it will be fresh and funny again.

Jim Gaffigan has always been a reliable and hysterical laugh and this was just not it. He took a couple mediocre bits and absolutely rode them into oblivion. It really seemed like he either fell into the "they'll laugh at anything I say" trap, or he thought he could completely change his style. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he witnessed the meteoric rise of Joe Rogan and his band of edgy comics and decided to try and tiptoe that way too. We chuckled a few times and watched the whole show but it didn't have the same punch any of his other shows. I'm rooting for his next set to get back to funny Jim.

On a positive note: this is the only comedy show I've seen in a while that I didn't have to shut down due to numerous F-bombs (and worse). Keeping the act clean: good for you Jim.

On the other hand, I rate a comedy show by the number of times I actually laugh during the show... and a good show brings me to tears from laughing so hard. To be honest, I'm not really sure if I actually laughed out loud during the entire show. Maybe a light chuckle here or there. That's about it.

The shame is that there was some material that would have been legitimately funny-- if another comic had done it who had better timing. I could tell when a joke thudded just because his timing was lousy. A little longer pause and he'd have nailed it. But nah, it was like he just rambled on and well, that one went over like lead balloon. (Which has some actual relevance to his show.)

I did somewhat enjoy the Starbucks section, not because it was funny but because it was pretty spot on. His monologue on death and funerals was somewhat humorous but not especially impressive. A lengthy run-on dialog about diarrhea (un-funny at that) does not a comedy show make.

This was pretty sad. I think I'm generous in giving it 4 stars, but then again, he kept the show language relatively clean.

Next time Jim, maybe have an honest test audience listen to your show before you get in front of an audience. "Jim, it really wasn't that funny" would be doing you a big favor.

I am a huge Jim Gaffigan fan. So multitalented and a sense of humor that you aren't afraid to listen to with your kids in the room. Good, clean fun. We both come from the midwest. I wanted to love this special as much as his others; but, he's lost a step. Perhaps COVID dulled his standup skills a bit, I can't say what it is, perhaps his material, perhaps he appeared to be trying a little too hard because he realilzed he wasn't hitting homeruns. Not sure; but, I'm not sure I had a good laugh until halfway through. I still think he's a national treasure; but, he has set the bar so high for himself that sooner or later he was going to come up short, and this special #10 ("Dark Pale") was the one. Hope it's just a glitch, a momentary lapse, because he is one of th best comedians alive today.

I laughed so much that my sides ached. He dared to go where many comedians shy away from these days. It was refreshing how he called the shots. True comedy pokes fun at real human experience. This is what I like about Jim; he gets real.

The dark comedy was a good way to not take myself so seriously. Life is short. You need to step back and laugh at some of the dogma and cultural things that make us real. I like how he addressed death, religion, and yes, coffee drinkers who are so wrapped up in themselves they forget to laugh.

If you are really honest with yourself you can laugh at multiple levels.