Problem Child

Leslie Jones knows exactly how to use her physical presence. At six feet tall with size twelve feet, she dominates the room, pacing with an athletic aggression that stems from her college basketball days. Problem Child captures her operating entirely in fifth gear. She shouts down the audience, acts out defensive posturing just to take a photo with a shorter man, and climbs into the front rows to ask strangers highly personal questions about their sex lives.

Filmed for Showtime in Hollywood in 2010, the hour marks a turning point in her trajectory. Jones had previously taken a three-year break from comedy on the advice of Jamie Foxx, returning to grind in small clubs before demanding stage time at The Comedy Store. This set serves as the bridge between that era and the Chris Rock co-sign that would lead to Saturday Night Live three years later. The material is thoroughly blue and built for the road crowds she had been entertaining on Katt Williams tours. She questions the creepiness of the Jack in the Box mascot, describes the tense silence that falls over a Payless shoe store when she walks in, and explains the mechanics of being a cheap date. Retrospective writeups often point out her heavy reliance on volume and shock value during this period. The approach works because she commits her entire frame to every punchline.