Life, Death, & Rice Pudding

Paul Reiser steps up to the microphone and immediately promises zero social relevance, zero politics, and no redeeming value whatsoever. Rather than chasing the cultural moment, he spends the hour fixated on small domestic indignities: the strange habit of lying awake inventing freak catastrophes that have never happened, the logistics of boiling pasta in the nude, and the misery of cleaning a house just so prospective buyers never suspect you lived like pigs.

Released in late 2024 and directed by Brian Volk-Weiss, the special marked Reiser’s first stand-up release in over thirty years. By that point, younger viewers knew him primarily as a reliable character actor in Stranger Things and The Kominsky Method rather than a veteran of Catch a Rising Star. On stage, he ignores the decades away, maintaining a relaxed cadence that treats the performance less like an event and more like a routine shift at the club.

The title bit frames life as a bowl of rice pudding, where unwanted raisins are guaranteed to show up no matter how carefully someone tries to eat around them.