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Promotional art for Noble Ape
Cover image credit: Promotional image via Comedy Dynamics

Noble Ape

Jim Gaffigan

Comedy Dynamics · 2018 · 67 min

Jim Gaffigan mines a family medical crisis for clean, self-deprecating laughs.

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Gaffigan starts the set by dealing with a serious medical crisis: his wife and co-writer, Jeannie, spent the previous year recovering from a large brain tumor. Instead of turning it into a solemn plea for sympathy, Gaffigan treats the ordeal as a comedy minefield. He details his own terrible caregiver instincts, like sneaking food into his mouth behind his wife’s back while she was restricted to a liquid diet. The resulting show is a rare shift toward the deeply personal for a comic usually known for safe banter about processed snacks and weight gain.

Filmed at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston, the 2018 special was co-written and directed by Jeannie herself. At this point in his career, Gaffigan was branching out with a heavy slate of indie film roles and made the unusual industry decision to bypass Netflix, releasing the special instead to theaters and digital on-demand services. While the health scare anchors the first half, Gaffigan still finds plenty of room for his traditional, lighter topics. He riffs on the aggressive driving culture of the Northeast, his anxieties about international missile threats, and the specific indignities of getting a massage in Asia.

The set list

6 bits

  1. Doctors describing tumors using fruit analogies

    Jokes that his wife's brain tumor was the size of a pear and rationalizes that doctors use food comparisons because they size him up as a food-obsessed shlub.

  2. Secretly eating care packages sent to his recovering wife

    Riffs on secretly wolfing down high-end food gifts from friends so as not to upset his wife while she was relegated to eating Jell-O, questioning whether he created a whole new eating disorder.

  3. Opening for Pope Francis in Philadelphia

    Recounts performing with minimal preparation after relying on hurried backstage internet research, telling local inside jokes that backfired and getting booed by the massive crowd.

  4. 'Fatting out' of clothes

    Observes how his all-black stage attire does little to slim him down and describes the unwearable pants in the back of his closet as an expanding-girth diary.

  5. North Korea's nuclear threats

    Satirizes North Korea's incessant threats to blow up the world every two days and mocks the exhaustion of dealing with their constant need for attention.

  6. Traveling to China with his family

    Describes locals grabbing his children for photos and rubbing his blond kid's head for good luck, concluding they should start charging money for it.

How it plays

Tone
Affable, reassuring, mordant, and mildly self-deprecating while finding humor in trauma.
On stage
Droll, affable, self-deprecating everyman presenting himself as an overgrown, shlubby food-monster who preempts audience judgment.
Pace
Steady, conversational, and genially self-effacing, performed stripped-down on stage with only a microphone and an unused stool.
About
Wife's brain tumor and hospital caretaking, Weight gain, shame-eating, and aging, Foreign travel and cultural differences, Opening for Pope Francis in Philadelphia, Colonoscopies and medical appointments, Fatherhood with five children

What the critics said

Critical response was positive, praising Gaffigan's skillful integration of personal health trauma and caregiving into his trademark clean, food-centric, and accessible observational comedy.

In the room: Resonated strongly with audiences due to universal experiences with family medical crises, filmed head-on without cutaway reaction shots.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: whatsafterthemovie.com, comedydynamics.com, amazon.com, hollywoodreporter.com, latimes.com, avclub.com, decider.com, metacritic.com, pro.imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org.

Backstory

Centers on the medical crisis that struck his family when his wife and writing partner Jeannie Gaffigan was diagnosed with a pear-sized brain tumor on her brain stem requiring surgery and caretaking, an ordeal that nearly led to his retirement.

Details

Released
Taped
2017, Wilbur Theatre, Boston
Runtime
67 min
Where
Comedy Dynamics
Director
Jeannie Gaffigan
Topics
Before
Cinco (2017)
After
Quality Time (2019)

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