Words, Words, Words
Comedy Central · 2010 · 61 min
A teenage comedian blends dense wordplay with cynical musical parodies.
Bo Burnham plays the part of a jaded, bitter industry veteran going through a messy divorce. It is structurally sound comedy until you remember he is nineteen. He offsets his genuine musical talent with dense, rapid-fire puns, mathematical equations disguised as lyrics, and a heavy dose of staged arrogance. He opens the show by comparing a standard call-and-response routine to a Nazi rally, then pivots into a hyper-calculated parody of hip-hop machismo.
Filmed at the House of Blues in Boston in 2010, the set served as the inaugural broadcast of Comedy Central’s “House of Comedy Live” series. Burnham was the youngest comedian to ever record an hour for the network, translating his early YouTube notoriety into a tightly choreographed theater act.
He balances older internet hits like “I’m Bo Yo” with cynical tracks like “Art is Dead,” a piano ballad attacking the inherent narcissism of entertainers. The show was well-received by critics who praised his lyrical density and fluidity, topping the Billboard Comedy charts. He later took the material to the Edinburgh Fringe, where it won the Panel Prize.
The set list
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What's Funny
A musical number warning the audience about offensive material while satirizing conventional stand-up cliches.
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Men & Women
A song professing that women are always right while repeatedly insulting men.
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Ironic
A deadpan song countering Alanis Morissette by cataloging bleak and paradoxical scenarios.
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Haikus and Shakespeare Sonnet
Reciting crude haikus and an imagined sonnet of Shakespeare writing pornography, followed by a rap in Shakespearean argot.
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Rant
A song critiquing organized religion and childhood experiences in church.
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Art is Dead
A serious, jokeless piano ballad deconstructing the narcissistic vanity of performers, attention addiction, and the commercialization of art.
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Oh Bo
A satirical hip-hop boast track parodying modern rap tropes with escalating, ridiculous sexual exploits.
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Love Is...
An absurd, sardonic love song delivered during the show's encore.
How it plays
- Tone
- Irreverent, satirical, deadpan, cynical, and intellectually self-aware.
- On stage
- Faux-arrogant, precocious 'prodigy' masking an awkward, self-loathing, and needy underbelly; switching rapidly between erudite intellect and deliberate ignorance.
- Pace
- Fast-moving, quip-packed, and relentless; dense with quickfire jokes and tight rhythms.
- About
- critique of traditional stand-up comedy tropes, vanity and the nature of artistic attention-seeking, religion and Christianity, sex and relationships, wordplay and puns, irony and paradoxes
What the critics said
Mostly positive, with critics lauding Burnham's prodigious talent, dense wordplay, and fluid stage presence, while noting the high-density wit could occasionally feel overly precocious or acquired.
In the room: Engaged and often laughing on a five-second delay to parse the dense wordplay, with vocal reactions to provocative punchlines.
Backstory
Transitioning from bedroom YouTube videos to mainstream live performance; taped as the inaugural performance of Comedy Central's 'House of Comedy Live from House of Blues' series amid debates over his unconventional, rapid ascent to fame.
Details
- Released
- Taped
- House of Blues, Boston
- Runtime
- 61 min
- Where
- Comedy Central
- Director
- Shannon Hartman
- Honors
- Panel Prize at the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy AwardsNominated for Best Comedy Show at the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Awards
- Topics
- After
- what. (2013)
More from Bo Burnham
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The Inside Outtakes
Netflix
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Inside
Netflix
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Make Happy
Netflix
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what.
YouTube
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