Dave Attell
Filthy late-night club comedy built on flawless joke structure.
10 specials · 1992–2024
Start with Caroline's Comedy Hour — Colin Quinn host episode, the most honored (1992 · A&E)
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He paces the stage with a corded mic, hunched slightly forward, operating at a constant, driving clip. He does not want applause. When a crowd starts clapping, he will wave them down, shushing the room so he can deliver the next tag. The rhythm is unyielding: setup, punch, tag, tag, another tag, pivot to a new premise.
Specials
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Bumping Mics with Jeff Ross
Netflix · 1 h 43 min
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A spliced-together club tour capturing the reality of late-night comedy.
Comedy Central · 41 min
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Pure, dirty club comedy with absolutely zero wasted words.
Comedy Central Records · Album · 54 min
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A nicotine-stained half-hour of dive-bar logic and blackout drinking.
Comedy Central · 20 min
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A fast-paced 1996 set from the quintessential New York club comic.
HBO · 27 min
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The 1995 Young Comedians Show with Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K. & 2 more
A 1995 Aspen stand-up showcase hosted by Garry Shandling.
HBO · 60 min
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Caroline's Comedy Hour — Colin Quinn host episode with Louis C.K., Colin Quinn & 3 more
A 1992 cable showcase of New York club comics before they broke.
A&E
On stage
He is the comedian other professionals stand by the sound booth to study. He has spent decades working clubs at midnight, ignoring the industry shift toward theatrical storytelling to focus entirely on the mechanics of the punchline.
The material is unapologetically dirty. He talks about strange sex, severe hangovers, and physical decay, but the dark subject matter hides inside tight, fat-free writing. There are no sprawling emotional arcs. A passing comment about the moisture inside a bag of baby carrots reveals the same careful construction as his heaviest bits. He stacks the hour so full of jokes that an audience has to stay entirely focused to catch every left turn.
He built this specific sensibility in the early 2000s by hosting Insomniac, a television travelogue where he hung out with third-shift workers and barflies until dawn. The program tied his identity to the late-night shift, an environment he still recreates whenever he picks up a microphone.
Turning points
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Letterman Appearance Leads to SNL Writing Staff
Attell's standup set on the Late Show with David Letterman caught the attention of Lorne Michaels, who hired him as a writer and performer for Saturday Night Live.
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Launch of Insomniac with Dave Attell
Premiering on Comedy Central as a late-night travel show, the series cemented Attell's public persona as a nightlife guide and underground comic.
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Formation of Bumping Mics Duo
Following an act developed at the Comedy Cellar, Attell and Jeff Ross toured together and filmed a three-part documentary series for Netflix.
At a glance
- Born
- , New York City, New York
- On stage
- since 1988
- Style
- blue comedy, insult comedy, black comedy
- Breakout
- Insomniac with Dave Attell
- Topics
- Elsewhere
- Wikipedia
Fans also like
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Jeff RossCollaborated closely on the Bumping Mics tour and Netflix series, sharing roots in the NYC Comedy Cellar and biting insult comedy.
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Colin Quinn
Shared decades in the New York Comedy Cellar scene and traded rapid-fire barbs together on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.
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Greg GiraldoCo-headlined Dave Attell's Insomniac Tour and shared a hard-hitting, dark, and acerbic standup sensibility.
Also on screen
- 1996–1997
- Everybody Loves Raymond
- 2001–2004
- Insomniac with Dave Attell
- Pootie Tang
- The Gong Show with Dave Attell
- Dave's Old Porn
A clip to start with
Dave Attell - Love Songs Ruin Relationships