Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy
Promotional art for Taste It
Cover image credit: Promotional image via Prime Video

Taste It

Nick Swardson

Comedy Central · 2015 · 68 min

Fart jokes and drinking stories from an aging party comic.

Watch on Comedy Central(opens in a new tab)

Nick Swardson isn’t trying to evolve. While his peers hit middle age and start writing hours about their personal growth, Swardson steps on stage in a clean t-shirt to talk about booze, women, and figure skaters getting diarrhea. He leans into what he knows: the aggressive stupidity of his own life and the high-energy delivery required to sell it. The premises stay firmly in his usual lane, spanning everything from fending off his mother’s cat to acting out the first person to ever experience brain freeze.

Filmed at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas, Taste It arrived at a strange transition point for the comic. Swardson had spent the previous few years heavily embedded in Happy Madison film productions and Comedy Central television shows. The schedule pushed him to take a break from the stage, and he admitted in interviews that he wasn’t entirely sure this hour was going to happen. When he finally returned to the road, he bypassed the urge to mature his act, opting to close the show with a story about trying to sleep next to Liv Tyler on an airplane.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Brutal negative-40-degree Minnesota winters and the absurdity of weather warnings advising the elderly not to go outside.

    Contrasts severe Northern blizzards with mild Southern weather, poking fun at people claiming to enjoy the freezing cold.

  2. Being the designated sober driver taking completely wasted friends through a fast-food drive-through.

    Acts out the frustration of trying to order at the speaker while passengers request non-existent menu items, wedding cake, or try to hit on the drive-through speaker.

  3. The hypocrisy of the 'Drink Responsibly' warning in Jack Daniel's advertisements.

    Argues that nobody drinks an entire bottle of whiskey responsibly to stay in and watch television, proposing more brutally honest advertising slogans instead.

  4. Men drinking frozen daiquiris and suffering brain freeze.

    Examines how uncool men look holding festive frozen drink glasses, culminating in an impression of the very first person in history to experience a brain freeze.

  5. Figure skaters suffering from diarrhea during competition.

    Combines graceful athletic performance with chaotic bodily dysfunction.

How it plays

Tone
Crude, irreverent, vulgar, and hedonistic.
On stage
Brash, cocky, and party-centric with an emphasis on unabashed frat-boy crude humor and self-deprecation.
Pace
Lively, animated, and punctuated with shouting and physical character act-outs.
About
booze and blacking out, chicks and relationships, diarrhea and bodily functions, cold Minnesota weather versus warm climates, fast food drive-throughs while sober driving

What the critics said

Received positive reactions from Swardson's dedicated fan base, though critics and reviewers were divided, noting the material relied heavily on familiar, crude frat-boy tropes about booze, women, and toilet humor.

In the room: Energetic and enthusiastic crowd cheering loudly for his return to Austin.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: imdb.com, letterboxd.com, tv.apple.com, pastemagazine.com, allmusic.com.

Backstory

Filmed following months touring the U.S. on a bus; Swardson openly questioned whether he had a future in stand-up or would continue doing party-oriented comedy into older age.

Details

Released
Taped
Paramount Theater, Austin
Runtime
68 min
Where
Comedy Central
Director
Nicholaus Goossen
Topics
Before
Seriously, Who Farted? (2009)
After
Comedians of the World (2019)

More from Nick Swardson

If you liked this