Comedy Central Presents: Paul Mecurio

The comedy of professional downgrade is a familiar stand-up trope, but Paul Mecurio arrived at it with better credentials than most. Having traded a lucrative double life as a Wall Street mergers and acquisitions lawyer and CS First Boston investment banker for comedy clubs, Mecurio dedicated his half-hour set to the physical and financial indignities of choosing jokes over money. Taped at the Hudson Theatre in New York City and aired in May 2004, the set finds him explaining why finding a ten-dollar bill on the sidewalk has become a major financial event. He gets mileage out of the quiet humiliations of his new bracket, arguing that nothing deflates ego quite like a full-length mirror, and detailing why he suspects God is passive-aggressive. At this point in his career, Mecurio was mostly known as a behind-the-scenes force, having already won Emmy and Peabody awards as a writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This set was his opportunity to put his neurotic, observational delivery front and center, proving that the corporate polish of his past career had done nothing to cure his anxiety.