Hyperbolic
YouTube · 2024 · 48 min
A math-minded comic solves for the absurdities of modern romance.
Matthew Broussard has long leaned into his natural handicap: he looks exactly like a generic 1980s movie villain who owns a yacht. For Hyperbolic, his 2024 debut full-length special, he uses that clean-cut, slightly punchable posture to deliver highly structured stand-up that treats joke writing more like a math proof than a confession. His jokes are built with computational precision, leaning on diagrams and logical traps rather than standard setups.
Having started in comedy over a decade prior and released a Comedy Central half-hour back in 2016, Broussard spent eight years polishing this hour on the road before self-producing the special for YouTube through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. Directed by Jason Katz and James Webb, the show was filmed in a New York comedy club, capturing Broussard shortly after his engagement to NCAA champion swimmer Laura Sogar.
His relationship is the source of the show’s strongest material, particularly a centerpiece routine about the emasculating reality of being the ‘bread loser’ to a professional athlete with giant swimmer feet. Broussard also leans into his mixed heritage as the product of a Cajun chemist father and a Jewish microbiologist mother, detailing the quirks of his mother’s struggles with mental illness. Between family stories, he pivots to hyper-specific routines on the etymological origins of pharmaceuticals like Viagra, grammatical inefficiencies in the French language, and the statistical likelihood of who starts arguments in couples counseling.
The set list
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Empty subway cars in New York City
Realizing an empty subway car during rush hour at Penn Station means someone is indecent on it, and enthusiastically deciding to be that person.
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The word 'Jew' and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories
Examining Jewish names, bank branding, and how 'Jew' functions safely as a noun but becomes problematic as a verb or adjective.
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Attending a Christian prep school in Atlanta
Believing he was bullied for being the only Jewish student until another Jewish student arrived and immediately became class president and prom king.
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Cajun heritage and dietary customs
Highlighting how Cajun cuisine is entirely non-kosher and dissecting Ellen DeGeneres as the most famous Cajun.
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The inefficiency of French phonetics
Critiquing how French words contain excessive silent letters that make the language overly complicated.
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Vibrators and a cat throwing up
Executing an extended physical act-out comparing vibrators to a cat throwing up.
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Baby Viagra and pharmaceutical origin stories
Examining the bizarre history and origins of pharmaceutical discoveries.
How it plays
- Tone
- Razor-sharp, witty, playful, and erudite.
- On stage
- Intellectually engaging, heady, self-effacing, stationary, targeting an educated and amoral audience.
- Pace
- Deliberate, rhythmic, high jokes-per-minute delivery with a stationary stage presence.
- About
- Southern Jewish and Cajun identity, Anti-Semitism, New York City subway life, Dating a professional athlete and modern masculinity, French phonetics and etymology, Maternal mental illness
What the critics said
Appraised as razor-sharp, highly intellectual, and tightly paced with high joke density, though some reviewers noted camera angles highlighted a somewhat leaning or stationary stage posture.
Backstory
Drawing on his background as the son of a Cajun chemist and Jewish biologist, attending a WASPy Christian prep school in Atlanta, living in New York City, and dating a former professional athlete.
Details
- Released
- Runtime
- 48 min
- Where
- YouTube
- Director
- Jason Katz, James Webb
- Topics
- Before
- The Half Hour (2016)
More from Matthew Broussard
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The Half Hour
Comedy Central
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