45 Jokes About My Dead Dad

Laurie Kilmartin spent the final days of her father’s battle with lung cancer in 2014 doing what any working comedian with a Twitter account would do: writing jokes from his hospice bedside. Her grim, real-time dispatches about morphine drips and final goodbyes went viral, supported by comedy heavyweights and people who just needed permission to laugh through their own grief. Two years later, she took that gallows-humor blueprint to the Lyric Theatre in Los Angeles to tape a stand-up hour designed to do exactly what the title promises.

With a literal counter ticking up in the bottom corner of the screen, Kilmartin works through a tightly structured list of punchlines about tumors, funerals, and the sheer absurdity of watching a parent die. The material is unsparing and dark, finding space for bits about getting turned on by the military guard giving her father a 21-gun salute, and appreciating her boyfriend’s restraint in not saying “Who’s your daddy?” during sex.

Rather than a standard stand-up set, the hour is structured as a documentary hybrid. The performance is interspersed with home video footage of her father and talking-head interviews with her boss Conan O’Brien, Andy Kindler, and Patton Oswalt, who discuss the necessity of dark humor. Released on the short-lived streaming platform Seeso in December 2016, the special was well-received by critics and named one of the year’s best specials by Vulture.