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STUDIO: Goldhill
MSRP: $27.98
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 64 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: Deleted Scenes
The Pitch
"Hey Mr. Executive, we’re so edgy. We’re like totally offensive! Just like Carlos Mencia!" "Really? Just like Mencia? Hey he has his own TV show! Okay! Here’s a contract for a comedy show and a DVD!"
The Humans
Bobby Lee, Kevin Shea, Steve Byrne, Dr. Ken Jeong
Same thing happened to me the first two times I tried to watch this, seriously.
The Nutshell
Four relatively unknown (except for Lee, who’ll be recognized by fans of MadTV) Asian comics decide to give themselves a title that’s been used so many times it’s lost all meaning and spend an hour trying their hardest to be edgy, offensive and funny. They fail.
The Lowdown
So apparently MadTV wasn’t enough for Bobby Lee. He felt, for some reason (and given the number of "fucks" in his set I have an idea as to what that reason is), that he and his friends needed a stand-up DVD. Fine. He also decided to make it an all-Asian cast. Also fine. He then decided to name his little band of funny-men The Kims of Comedy. Wait…what? Number one – can we please deny the use of the "___ of Comedy" from now on? None of them have ever been accurate. The Original Kings? Bernie Mac, Steve Harvey, D. L. Hughley?! No. Original Queens? Monique? Ummm…no. And now The Kims? That’s so retarded. It would be appropriate had the actors names been Kim (either first or last – I’m not picky) but you know someone thought this would be "all, like, edgy and stuff." It’s the equivalent of Carlos Mencia, Paul Rodriguez and George Lopez making a DVD called the Original Beaners of Comedy (I’m so sad because I can actually see that happening). Anyway, not to go off on a tangent – but let’s just put a stop to that title being used ever again, can we?
"Look how desperate I am for a laugh!"
So, title aside, I was hoping this would at least be funny. Sure I expected the ethnic humor going in (and sometimes it can be done wonderfully), but I did not want to see an hour of the Asian Equivalents of Larry the Cable Guy.
Like the Stones used to say – you can’t always get what you want.
Nothing but set after set of the most obvious, immature, superficial culture jokes. The exact same stuff you’re gonna see on Mind of Mencia or Blue Collar TV. And like I say, you can make those jokes and still be funny – you just have to make sure your set doesn’t rely on them. Steve Harvey’s good at that. As is Bernie Mac, George Carlin and Bill Hicks. The ethnic, cultural jokes are peripheral to the foundation of their sets, where as the gentlemen in the spotlight here apparently can’t write a joke without hitting every stereotype there is. A comedian by the name of Emo Phillips once said that the reason he doesn’t add swearing to his routines is because more often than not, people end up laughing at the "fuck" as opposed to the joke. Obviously there are exceptions to that rule, but this is not one of those exceptions. "Hey, I said FUCK!" "Hey, I said CHINK!" "Hey I’m singing I Believe I can Fly, but I’m gonna say ‘I Berieve I can Fry!’" Give me a fucking break. Again, that wouldn’t be so bad if those jokes weren’t the foundations for the guys’ sets. Everything is built around that and it’s just so lazy and arrogant. The only bright spot was Steve Byrne, who was able to construct a somewhat decent set and was the recipient of the only laughs (all two of them) that I gave this hour-long showcase of suck.
I like to imagine a crazy dude with a sub-machine gun standing next to an applause sign threatening the audience – helps me justify this.
The Package
The cover is as boring as the material, which is awesome because cover art is supposed to sell the content inside and this does a MARVELOUS job. Oh, and the big blurb at the top? "From one of the executive producers of Last Comic Standing." Helluva sell, fellas.
Feature-wise there’s some deleted scenes from each performer and again Steve Byrne stands out. The stuff in his trimmed bits was pretty funny and made me wonder why it didn’t make the cut. Ah well.
So in the end it all boils down to false advertising: The shit aint original, none of these dudes are named Kim and the last time I checked, comedy was supposed to be funny. Bad form, guys…bad form indeed.
3.0 out of 10
(simply for Steve Byrne’s deleted material)