You're Doing Great
Netflix · 2020 · 60 min
A polite and comforting defense of living an average life.
Tom Papa wants to lower your standards. His 2020 Netflix debut centers on a simple, counter-intuitive premise for a modern stand-up set: you are actually doing fine. Instead of feeding into the collective dread of the era, he uses his stage time to assure a stressed-out crowd that they don’t need to be extraordinary to live a good life. It is a cozy, low-stakes hour of comedy that targets the exhausting pressure to perform happiness on social media, the urge to constantly check 24-hour news networks, and the bizarre guilt of eating ice cream on a Tuesday.
Filmed at the Victoria Theater at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, the special captured Papa at a highly productive moment in his career. Beyond touring, he was co-hosting a daily SiriusXM show with Fortune Feimster, contributing to NPR’s Live From Here, and preparing to release an essay collection under the same title. On stage, he mixes crowd work with signature observational routines about family life, the existential misery of waking up in Staten Island, and the quiet relief of setting more obtainable daily goals. Critics and audiences largely accepted the show as a comforting, gentle hour, though some found his polished, polite delivery a bit too safe for their tastes.
The set list
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Poking fun at Staten Island
Uses teasing comparisons of neighboring Staten Island to build rapport and trust with the Newark, New Jersey crowd.
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Fitness before-and-after photos and daytime TV makeovers
Argues makeover outfits are never worn again and admits he prefers the 'before' guy, who looks like he has doughnuts and friends.
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The myth of the 'good old days'
Points out that nostalgic past eras featured misery, lack of fashion options, and primitive hospital care.
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Parenting daughters with excessive modern choices
Contrasts his Gen X upbringing with modern kids having sample spoons at ice cream shops and ruling over their parents.
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Waking up a daughter in the middle of the night
Expresses internal self-doubt about whether he is going to make it in life, blaming 24-hour news and social media consumption.
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Cruise ships and forced vacation activities
Observes how desperate attempts to escape regular life lead people into bad decisions like cruise vacations and zip-lining.
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Front-row couple interaction
Riffs with an audience couple about their lives to reinforce the special's core idea that ordinary lives are going fine.
How it plays
- Tone
- Optimistic, sincere, reassuring, and warm.
- On stage
- Hopeful, sincere, non-cynical, and reassuring; performs in a suit with punchline delivery reminiscent of Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan, and Brian Regan.
- About
- family relationships, social media and comparison, aging and nostalgia, body image and fitness culture, news anxiety, vacations and cruises
What the critics said
Decider recommended viewers 'Stream It', praising Papa's lighter touch and warm observational humor that comforts viewers in stressful times.
In the room: Supportive and engaged home-state theater audience receptive to local NJ references and front-row crowd work.
Backstory
Filmed in Papa's home state of New Jersey amidst a cultural climate saturated with 24-hour news cycles, election anxieties, social media comparison, and collective stress.
Details
- Released
- Taped
- Victoria Theater at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark
- Runtime
- 60 min
- Where
- Netflix
- Director
- Greg Jacobs
- Topics
- Before
- Human Mule (2016)
- After
- What A Day! (2022)
More from Tom Papa
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Home Free
Netflix
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What A Day!
Netflix
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Human Mule
Epix
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Freaked Out
Comedy Dynamics
-
Comedy Central Presents
Comedy Central
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Calm, Cool, & Collected
Album
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