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Caligula

Anthony Jeselnik

Paramount+ · 2013 · 60 min

An hour of arrogant misdirection and tightly constructed dark one-liners.

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Anthony Jeselnik does not care if you like him. He practically insists you don’t. Pacing the stage with an arrogant smirk, he spends an hour setting up what feel like standard, sometimes somber premises, only to drop the floor out from under the audience with the darkest misdirection possible. He operates like a magician doing a card trick where the reveal is always a tragedy, turning taboo subjects into tightly constructed one-liners. The tension doesn’t come from whether he will cross a line, but how precisely he plans to step over it.

Filmed at the Vic Theatre in Chicago in 2013, Caligula captures Jeselnik during a major career transition. He was riding a massive wave of momentum from his breakout appearances on the Comedy Central Roasts of Donald Trump and Charlie Sheen, and this hour aired just before the launch of his own network series, The Jeselnik Offensive. The set is packed with his signature dark misdirection, including a memorable closer about a “shark party” and a casual complaint about a girlfriend who owns so many shoes it looks like she robbed the Holocaust Museum. Caligula landed on multiple year-end lists, proving his abrasive, joke-dense format could easily carry a theater crowd.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Searching for his girlfriend's killer

    Twisting a seemingly tragic pursuit into an admission that he has spent two years looking for someone willing to kill her.

  2. Opening with rape jokes

    Immediately establishing the dark threshold of his act by telling a rape joke and notifying the audience that two more are coming.

  3. Holocaust-denying mother and Princess Diana

    Describing growing up with a mother whose house is filled with hand-drawn pictures of Princess Diana right after her fatal crash.

  4. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    Closing joke about Casey Anthony closer

    Ending the performance on a deliberately provocative and bad-taste note referencing Casey Anthony.

How it plays

Tone
Pitch-black, transgressive, unapologetic, and provocative.
On stage
An arrogant, amoral, immaculately put-together villain and comic prince of darkness reminiscent of a Bret Easton Ellis character or Patrick Bateman.
Pace
Meticulous, restrained, and methodical; comfortably luxuriating in long pauses, anticipation, and deadpan silence before delivering brutal punchlines.
About
rape, murder, domestic violence, suicide, the Holocaust, tragedy and taboo topics

What the critics said

Praised by critics as an audacious, meticulously crafted showcase of misdirection and transgressive humor, though some reviewers noted that the barrage of relentless taboo-pushing punchlines can become tiring across a full hour.

In the room: Eliciting a volatile mixture of nervous laughter, gasps of horror, and shock as Jeselnik actively toys with the room.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: anthonyjeselnik.comedydirect.com, tv.apple.com, imdb.com, tvsa.co.za, dailynebraskan.com, avclub.com, blogcritics.org, allmusic.com, en.wikipedia.org, thewrap.com, vulture.com.

Backstory

Taped prior to the fall 2012 controversy surrounding Daniel Tosh's rape joke, during a period of debate over offensive material and taboo subjects in stand-up comedy.

Details

Released
Taped
The Vic Theatre, Chicago
Runtime
60 min
Where
Paramount+
Director
Ryan Polito
Topics
After
Thoughts and Prayers (2015)

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