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Promotional art for Joe Mande’s Award-Winning Comedy Special
Cover image credit: via TMDB

Joe Mande’s Award-Winning Comedy Special

Joe Mande

Netflix · 2017 · 66 min

A meta stand-up set framed around a fictional comedy award.

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Joe Mande built his first hour of stand-up around a fake trophy. Tired of the standard formula where a comedian walks on stage after a generic walk-up shot, Mande framed his debut as a mockumentary about his desperate quest to win the “American Humour Award,” a fictional accolade supposedly coveted by comedy greats. It is a highly meta conceit, featuring consultations with past “winners” like Bo Burnham and George Wallace, and even a three-person judging panel planted in the crowd at the Highline Ballroom to score his performance in real time.

The stand-up itself holds up without the gimmickry. Mande, a veteran writer for Parks and Recreation and The Good Place, delivers his material with a relaxed, dry cadence that makes the most of some highly specific premises. He riffs on the absurdity of the retro MTV dating show Next, details a pitch for a questionable Shark Tank sex toy, and recounts a chaotic childhood diarrhea incident at a Jewish summer camp. There are also darker turns, including a prolonged look at the HBO documentary about the NYPD “Cannibal Cop.”

Filmed at the Highline Ballroom in New York City, the special arrived in July 2017 when Netflix was releasing new stand-up nearly every week. Mande’s meta-textual framing and cynical tone helped the set stand out, eventually landing on Time’s list of the best specials of the year.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Mock pitches for 'Shark Tank'

    Frames the reality show as people begging for money in front of millionaires, pitching visionary yet absurd business ideas.

  2. Dating shows and MTV's 'Next'

    Riffs on the superficial and specific personalities of reality dating show contestants.

  3. A cringe-worthy experience at Jewish summer camp

    Recounts personal awkwardness and adolescent experiences at camp.

  4. Production value of ISIS recruitment videos

    Takes an intentionally challenging, uncomfortable premise exploring high video production values and pushes the audience to board the premise.

How it plays

Tone
Deadpan, self-aware, witty, and satirical.
On stage
Deadpan, witty, transparent, and adopting a faux-cocky persona masking insecurity.
Pace
Deliberate, long-form pacing that subverts expectations by ending bits abruptly or resuming them unexpectedly; willingness to start in uncomfortable comedic holes and dig out.
About
Shark Tank, dating shows, Jewish summer camp, television and documentaries, awards culture in comedy, ISIS recruitment videos

What the critics said

Appraised as an inventive, deconstructed hour that satirizes the self-importance of comedy specials and awards, though some reviewers felt the contrast between high-concept framing and safer club material produced occasional tonal unevenness.

In the room: Tolerant and willing to be challenged through deliberate tension, with an on-screen judges panel scoring applause breaks and standing ovations.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: wikidata.org, pastemagazine.com, latestnetflix.com, thecomicscomic.com, vulture.com, imdb.com.

Backstory

Created as a parody of awards season fervor and the formulaic aesthetics of comedy specials, built around the fictional 'American Humour Award' decided by a judges panel.

Details

Released
Runtime
66 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Daniel Gray Longino
Topics
Before
The Half Hour (2012)
After
Award-Winning Comedy Special (2017)

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