Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time

Patton Oswalt’s 2014 hour finds him shifting away from his traditionally caustic club sets to document the softer and stranger realities of middle age. The centerpiece of the show isn’t a rant about pop culture, but a bleak, detailed fantasy about ending his own life in front of a supermarket Lean Cuisine display while Toto’s “Africa” plays over the PA system. It is a massive laugh built out of pure exhaustion.

Filmed at the Spreckels Theatre in San Diego during Comic-Con, Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time was directed by Bobcat Goldthwait and premiered on Epix. At the time, Oswalt was seeing a surge in mainstream acting work, popping up in everything from Justified to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. That stability heavily influences the material. He details how his depression had to take on more creative forms to bypass his newfound happiness as a father. He also recounts his young daughter being unfazed by accidentally watching The Wolfman but terrified by educational television.

Other standout stretches include a miserable gig performing for hundreds of drunk casino patrons who simply screamed his IMDb credits at him. Critics noted the hour relies more on a slow-burn storytelling approach than his previous albums, hitting a peak in the middle before coasting through a closing premise about German humorlessness.