Funcomfortable

Chris Hardwick takes the stage with the self-confessed energy of “SpongeBob soaked in cocaine water” to address the elephant in the room: his utter ubiquity on television. Filmed at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, this hour sees the host of @midnight and Talking Dead trying to shed his polished, fan-friendly moderator armor to talk about things that are genuinely awkward. Hardwick attempts to find a balance between his relentlessly sunny hosting persona and the darker realities of real life.\n\nThe set was recorded in early 2016, right as Super Bowl 50 traffic was paralyzing the Bay Area. Hardwick leans heavily into personal discomfort, discussing his membership in the “Dead Dad Club” after his father’s passing, the bizarre experience of being an adult man wearing Japanese animal onesies in public, and the dread of fielding invasive, highly sexual questions from relatives about his upcoming marriage. He even compares his friendly San Francisco crowd to C-3PO, calling them “a shiny gay robot who just wants to help people”.\n\nWhile Hardwick is an experienced crowd-pleaser, some critics noted that his shiny, rehearsed television professionalism makes it hard for the darker material to actually sting. The transitions from discussing grief and anxiety to doing a bit about a blow-up doll feel less like a confession and more like a highly structured presentation. Even when he is recounting a bizarre late-night incident involving a chihuahua and a kigurumi outfit, the slick television hosting instincts are never entirely turned off.