Comedy Central Presents: Nick Swardson

Nick Swardson outlines his dying wish with total sincerity. He wants a standard closed-casket service interrupted by heavy bass, a strobe light, and his corpse dropping from the ceiling on cables to bounce along to a techno beat. To complete the scene, he plans to pay John Stamos to stand in the back and cry, leaving his mourning family to ask one another if Nick actually knew John Stamos. That kind of highly specific, elaborate absurdity drives the act. He isn’t talking about taxes or the news. He is pitching his future as a 90-year-old man and explaining what happens when you take hallucinogens and try to fight a lamp.

Filmed at the Hudson Theatre in New York City, this half-hour set aired in early 2001 and captured the comic right before his television career accelerated. At 24, he was among the youngest performers to receive a Comedy Central Presents episode. This is Swardson before his tenure on Reno 911! or his steady work in studio films, presenting himself as a kid from Minneapolis who loves video games and casually lies to his friends just to make his anecdotes better. The material is silly but structurally sound, moving quickly through his frustration with airport signs, his attempts to impress his grandmother, and the grim reality of children going through Pokémon withdrawal.