My Favorite Shapes

Julio Torres approaches the stage in a shimmering, retro-futuristic metallic suit, sits at a desk, and spends an hour presenting a series of small, inanimate items on a custom industrial conveyor belt. Instead of traditional setup-punchline structures, he uses these objects as vessels for highly specific human anxieties. There is an oval that feels deeply inferior to circles, a self-conscious cactus with a diary, and a Ferrero Rocher chocolate that forgot to wear its little paper skirt. It is a slow, quiet hour that plays more like an avant-garde art installation than a typical stand-up set.

Filmed before a live audience at Elsewhere in Brooklyn, the 2019 HBO special arrived just as Torres was solidifying his reputation as one of the most distinct voices in American comedy. Known at the time as an SNL writer behind cult-favorite sketches like “Wells for Boys” and the co-creator of the surreal comedy series Los Espookys, Torres used the hour to showcase his commitment to the strange. The minimalist stage design was crafted by his mother and sister—a stark arrangement of white Formica, clear plexiglass, and neon to complement his custom translucent plastic shoes.

Rather than doing standard impressions of celebrities, Torres does impressions of objects, like a slow-dripping Brita water filter and the plastic curtain separating first class from coach on an airplane. He inspects a Happy Meal toy of Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, offering an analysis of how a kids’ meal ended up containing a toy of a genocidal 15th-century religious figure. The special also features voice cameos from Ryan Gosling as a blue penguin, Emma Stone as a shoe, and Lin-Manuel Miranda voicing the Spanish-speaking cactus.