The Pride Is Back

David Cross opens his first hour for HBO by walking to the microphone and singing an operatic aria to milk the crowd for laughs before he ever speaks a real sentence. From there, he locks into an aggressive, cynical rhythm, targeting the bizarre contradictions of late-nineties American consumerism. He spends significant time questioning the logistics of airport pornography, the flaws of airline programs that ask passengers to donate miles to sick children, and why High Times operates at a slightly lower intellectual level than Highlights for Children. It is a hyper-articulate hour of complaining from a comic who knows exactly how to weaponize his own irritation.

Taped at the Showbox Theater in Seattle in 1999, the broadcast captured Cross right after the cancellation of his sketch series Mr. Show. He performs in front of an enthusiastic audience of Pacific Northwest alt-comedy fans, delivering a set that helped codify a specific lane of indie stand-up. The performance was widely praised and eventually named one of the 25 best comedy specials of all time by Rolling Stone.