Jim Gaffigan: Quality Time

Source, Amazon.com

I'm a night owl by nature. I usually don't get to sleep until after 11 or 12 at night. This propensity makes me a very unpleasant, or at least unsociable, person before 9 or 10 am. One upshot, however, is that I get news about thing before the information about them spreads.

For example, I discovered that Jim Gaffigan had a new comedy special, Quality Time, out on Amazon Prime Video a day before the notice of it arrived in my email.

My first exposure to Jim Gaffigan was his recurring role on That 70s Show as the character Roy (see his intro below). The role, I'd later discover, was perfect for him, as he delivered all his lines with that same sad, deadpan-ness as he did as a stand up. I've been a Gaffigan comic fan since I saw his first special, Beyond the Pale, on (prior to the tightening of the content guidelines), YouTube. 

He's one of the few comics working today, along with Fluffy, who I can actually watch with my mother. My mom's of that generation who looks down people who swear regularly (which I find funny because as she's aged she's slowly become one of those people), so she could never watch George Carlin or Richard Pryor with me. They were "me and dad" comics. 

But Gaffigan, since he doesn't swear and makes jokes about things like food, family, and being fat, (subjects everyone in my family are well acquainted with), is a "whole family" comic.

Quality Time is Gaffigan's seventh special, and much like his other specials, Gaffigan sticks to his tried-and-true subjects. For example, after he comes out on stage, he immediately starts joking about his weight:

"I'm wearing my shirt untucked. The untucked shirt--the fat man's last hurrah. Next stop, muumuu...The untucked shirt. It's like the male Wonderbra. There's a surprise underneath and...you're not gonna like it. "

From there he moves into his more personal stories, particularly the story of how he had to recently remove his appendix:

"The doctor told me that science doesn't even know what the appendix does. Science doesn't even know why the appendix exists. And I heard that, and I was like, oh my gosh, the appendix is like a Kardashian."

After watching this one a couple of time, I came to the conclusion that this special contains some of Gaffigan's darkest and edgiest (and therefore, at least for my twisted sensibility, funniest), jokes. Given that he doesn't swear or talk about hot-button topics in his stand up, he has to find even more surprising ways to shock his audience. For example:

"At one time, all human civilizations were cannibal, which means back then, it meant something different when someone said, "I'm craving Indian or Thai.""

or,

"When I was in Europe, I tried all the local specialties, you know? Norway, I tried Reindeer meat. I was in a Norwegian butcher shop in January, and they had sale on reindeer meat, and nothing says Christmas Season is over...quite like a sale on reindeer meat."

I don't know about you, but I find jokes like that hilarious. Still, reading the jokes written out like that doesn't do it justice. Instead, you'd better go and watch Quality Time on Amazon Prime Video right now. If you like clean comedy with an edge to it, this is the special for you. 

Simply click here, and prepare to laugh.