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Brick Wall Comedy

Award-Winning Comedy Special

Joe Mande

Netflix · 2017 · 66 min

A dry, highly structured stand-up hour framed as a fake competition.

Watch it free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Joe Mande wants to win the “American Humour Award,” a fictional trophy he invented for the sole purpose of his debut stand-up special. To make sure he gets it, he structures his performance like a gymnastics routine, keeping a literal tally of his applause breaks and standing ovations while a three-person panel of judges sits in the crowd scoring him. Before he even takes the stage at The Bell House in Brooklyn, the special opens with documentary-style skits where Mande seeks advice on how to game the system from comedians George Wallace and Bo Burnham, and shoots hoops with NBA star Blake Griffin.

In 2017, Mande was primarily known as a television writer, having spent years in the writers’ rooms of Parks and Recreation (where he also played Morris Lerpiss), The Good Place, and Kroll Show. That narrative background is obvious here. The hour is highly structured, using the award gimmick to bookend a set that relies on slow-burning, intricate storytelling rather than rapid-fire punchlines.

On stage, Mande works with a quiet, detached delivery, picking apart trash television and weird personal misadventures. He details a business concept for a specialized sex aid he wants to pitch on Shark Tank, analyzes the casual brutality of the MTV dating show Next, and recounts a childhood mistake involving bear feces at a Jewish summer camp. He closes the hour by detailing the time he accidentally got too high on edibles right before sitting in the front row of a live taping of Mike Huckabee’s Fox News program.

The set list

7 bits

  1. The American Humour Award quest

    A mockumentary and sketch conceit where Mande consults past winners Bo Burnham and George Wallace, shooting hoops with Blake Griffin before performing in front of a judges' panel tallying applause breaks.

  2. Production value of ISIS recruitment videos

    A challenging, extended bit where Mande tests audience patience by admiring the cinematic aesthetic and editing quality of terrorist propaganda videos.

  3. Pitching to Shark Tank

    Mande pitches bizarre, off-kilter product and business concepts as if presenting to the investors on the reality series Shark Tank.

  4. MTV's dating show Next

    Deconstructing the bizarre premises and contestants featured on the MTV reality dating show.

  5. Jewish summer camp

    Recounting a cringe-inducing personal story from his youth at a Jewish summer camp.

  6. Experimenting with dick pics

    Reflecting on his brief, awkward personal experimentation with sending unsolicited photos.

  7. Autoerotic asphyxiation

    Exploring choking and autoerotic asphyxiation as an extreme psychological coping mechanism during the Trump administration.

How it plays

Tone
Deadpan, self-aware, absurd, and subversive.
On stage
Deadpan, witty, transparent, projecting a blend of deliberate cockiness and deep insecurity.
Pace
Deliberately paced long-form storytelling featuring abrupt endings, pauses, and delayed callbacks.
About
dating shows, Shark Tank, Jewish summer camp, awards culture, pop culture, ISIS videos

What the critics said

Praised by professional critics as a smart, inventive, and fearlessly deconstructed special that subverts the standard rhythm of stand-up hours; user reviews were polarized between praise for its meta-premise and criticism of its deadpan delivery.

In the room: Challenging dynamic where Mande acknowledges feeling alone onstage while deliberately working tough sells and requiring audience patience.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: netflix.com, imdb.com, pastemagazine.com, wikidata.org, thecomicscomic.com, vulture.com, rottentomatoes.com, en.wikipedia.org.

Backstory

Constructed as a meta-parody of comedy specials and Hollywood awards season, framed around Mande trying to win the fictitious 'American Humour Award' evaluated by a judges' panel in the audience.

Details

Released
Runtime
66 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Daniel Gray Longino
Topics
Before
Joe Mande’s Award-Winning Comedy Special (2017)
After
Chill (2024)

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