Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy
Promotional art for Captain Miserable
Cover image credit: Promotional image via Prime Video

Captain Miserable

Dave Attell

HBO · 2007 · 58 min

Late-night raunch delivered to a surprisingly polite theater crowd.

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

Dave Attell spends a good portion of Captain Miserable trying to bend a polite theater audience to his usual late-night club rhythms. Armed with a rapid-fire delivery, he fires off filthy setups to a crowd that takes a minute to catch up. He gets the most out of his specific vocal mechanics. By deploying sudden whispers and abrupt volume changes, Attell manages to sell otherwise straightforward premises about soup, potheads, and the anatomical shape of Florida.

Filmed at Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Theater in 2007, the special arrived a few years after his Comedy Central series Insomniac ended. Attell later admitted the taping felt like “going uphill” against a stiff room, forcing him to pivot mid-stride during a bit about pedophiles.

Reception was divided. Some critics praised his undeniable timing, while others dismissed the set as dirty for the sake of being dirty. Either way, it functions as a snapshot of a working road dog tossing out pitches for Jagermeister commercials and venting about performing for troops in the Middle East.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Sexually assaulting Jack O'Lanterns

    Attell jokes about being inflamed by their come-hither grin.

  2. Taking his mother to a Florida retirement home

    Described as 'half-business, half-pleasure', noting that Florida looks like a penis.

  3. Suggesting oral sex

    Proposes the polite phrasing 'Let's make throat babies!'

  4. Bad hand jobs

    Addresses women in the audience by asking if their stepfathers taught them anything.

  5. Illegal abortion and gravity

    Suggests staircases could make a comeback because authorities can arrest back-alley doctors, but 'they can't arrest gravity!'

How it plays

Tone
Loud, raunchy, self-deprecating, and unapologetically dirty.
On stage
Described as a balding pudge with a skeevy beard and friendly dark eyes combining deeply pervy and palsy-walsy qualities, presenting a functionally alcoholic, sarcastic stage identity.
Pace
Quick-fire delivery and drunken energy featuring sudden lurches of profane logic, rolling cadence, and vocal tics ranging from perfectly timed whispers to yelling.
About
alcohol consumption, dating and sex, current events, celebrities, drugs, pornography

What the critics said

Divided. Some critics praised Attell's rhythmic delivery, vocal range, and quick-fire profanity, while others felt the material lacked depth and relied on vulgarity for its own sake in a venue that felt too large for his club-honed style.

In the room: Energetic and receptive in the venue, though multiple reviewers noted his act felt slightly disconnected from the large theater setting compared to intimate comedy clubs.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, letterboxd.com, tvguide.com, metrosiliconvalley.com, comicmix.com, chud.com, howardstern.com.

Backstory

Released in late 2007 during the Writers Guild of America strike, which Attell participated in.

Details

Released
Taped
The Lincoln Theater, Washington
Runtime
58 min
Where
HBO
Director
Beth McCarthy-Miller
Honors
Dubbed one of the '25 Funniest People in America' by Entertainment Weekly
Topics
Before
Skanks for the Memories... (2003)
After
Road Work (2014)

More from Dave Attell

If you liked this