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Promotional art for 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad
Cover image credit: via TMDB

45 Jokes About My Dead Dad

Laurie Kilmartin

Seeso · 2016 · 61 min

A countdown-structured hour of gallows humor about losing a parent.

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

Laurie Kilmartin spent the final days of her father’s battle with lung cancer in 2014 doing what any working comedian with a Twitter account would do: writing jokes from his hospice bedside. Her grim, real-time dispatches about morphine drips and final goodbyes went viral, supported by comedy heavyweights and people who just needed permission to laugh through their own grief. Two years later, she took that gallows-humor blueprint to the Lyric Theatre in Los Angeles to tape a stand-up hour designed to do exactly what the title promises.

With a literal counter ticking up in the bottom corner of the screen, Kilmartin works through a tightly structured list of punchlines about tumors, funerals, and the sheer absurdity of watching a parent die. The material is unsparing and dark, finding space for bits about getting turned on by the military guard giving her father a 21-gun salute, and appreciating her boyfriend’s restraint in not saying “Who’s your daddy?” during sex.

Rather than a standard stand-up set, the hour is structured as a documentary hybrid. The performance is interspersed with home video footage of her father and talking-head interviews with her boss Conan O’Brien, Andy Kindler, and Patton Oswalt, who discuss the necessity of dark humor. Released on the short-lived streaming platform Seeso in December 2016, the special was well-received by critics and named one of the year’s best specials by Vulture.

The set list

6 bits

  1. A blunt knock-knock joke opening the stand-up portion of the show.

    Opening the standup with 'Knock, knock. Who's there? Not my dad' to ease the crowd into the dark premise simply and dumbly.

  2. Buying her dying father a Valentine's Day present.

    Giving him a JC Penney gift card and telling him she hopes the card expires before he does.

  3. Breaking the news of her father's impending death to her young son.

    Her 7-year-old son looks up with big brown eyes and immediately asks if he gets his dying grandfather's iPad.

  4. Assisting her father in hospice with daily bathroom tasks.

    Setting a personal daily goal of trying not to see her father's genitals while helping him off the toilet.

  5. Following hospice protocol to comfort the dying.

    Contrasting hospice instructions to reassure the loved one that it is okay to pass with her actual reaction of sobbing, 'Dad, don't fucking leave me!'

  6. Balancing bereavement with vulgarity.

    Juxtaposing jokes about cremation with jokes about masturbation to keep the set rooted in club standup.

How it plays

Tone
Dark, twisted, brutally candid, cathartic, heartbreaking, and bittersweet.
On stage
Self-described traditional nightclub comic who delivers coarse, dirty, and wickedly twisted jokes without wanting to be overly earnest or sentimental.
Pace
Starts dumb and simple before steadily dialing up the dark material, intentionally puncturing heavy moments with raunchy dick jokes every few minutes.
About
death and dying, hospice care, lung cancer, grief, family dynamics, funerals

What the critics said

Acclaimed by critics as an innovative, essential, and deeply moving special that masterfully balances raw emotional grief and dark, laugh-out-loud comedy.

In the room: Rapt and emotionally moved, generating cathartic laughs alongside moments of grief.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: allmovie.com, theinterrobang.com, thecomicscomic.com, imdb.com, vulture.com, good.is, slate.com, en.wikipedia.org, lauriekilmartin.com.

Backstory

Kilmartin's father was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and entered hospice care in early 2014; she coped by live-tweeting dark, morbid, and touching jokes from his bedside, which went viral.

Details

Released
Taped
2014, The Lyric Theater, Los Angeles
Runtime
61 min
Where
Seeso
Director
Stephen Franciosa Jr., Frank Mosca, Dwayne Johnson-Cochran
Honors
Vulture's Top Ten Comedy Specials of 2016
Topics
After
Cis Woke Grief Slut (2024)

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