metrospective

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Cook cooks

Popular comic brings unique brand of humor to Denver audience

By Joe Nguyen
nguyjos@mscd.edu

Dane Cook has taken observational comedy a step further from its humble, "did you ever notice" origins.

Observational comedy is a style where stand-up comedians make quirky remarks about things that occur in everyday life. During the 1990s, Jerry Seinfeld popularized this brand of humor and ushered in a new era of the art form. Many have tried to imitate this style, but few have gone on to achieve success.

Photo by courtesy of Comedy Works
Comic Dane Cook, pictured above, performed at the Colorado Convention Center on
Friday, Oct. 7. Cook's singular brand of comic observation has made him a cult favorite.

Cook is a comic who has taken this style to the next level. He talks about how public bathrooms always have the most offensive messages written in them. He tells stories about his experience of having a one-night stand, "an ONS" as he calls it. He talks about his dream of having 19 kids and naming them after cartoon characters he grew up watching, like the heroes in the "Transformers" series.

Cook performed in the 5,000-person-capacity lecture hall of the Colorado Convention Center this past Friday. The sold-out crowd welcomed him with a barrage of "Super Fingers" (or Su-Fi), an upgrade of the middle finger where the ring finger is also raised. Cook invented this salute at a show years before.

The performance included both old and new material and drew waves of laughter and cheers after every joke. Many of the jokes had subtle, inside riffs woven into of the performance, so that only longtime fans would understand them. The audience broke into loud cheers when he whispered "pickles" into the microphone, a reference to a story he had used in years past, about working in a drive-thru.

Unlike his television specials and CDs, Cook often didn't finish his stories. He would go on about one subject, go off on a tangent about another and then go off on a different tangent, never returning to his original thought. A lesser comedian would have received a lackluster response from the audience, but this was Dane Cook. The crowd didn't care, because he was funny despite his veering.

Cook's star has risen exponentially since becoming a full-time comedian in 1993. In the late '90s, he performed on Comedy Central's, "Premium Blend" and "Comics Come Home" before getting his own special in 2000. In 2003, Cook released his first comedy CD/DVD set, "Harmful If Swallowed." The set has sold over 200,000 copies.

This past July, Cook released his sophomore album, a three CD/DVD compilation called "Retaliation." It debuted at No. 4 on Billboard magazine's top 200 albums chart and is a certified Gold Record, having sold over 500,000 copies. It was the highest-ranking comedy album since Steve Martin's "A Wild and Crazy Guy," which hit No. 2 back in 1979.

Most recently, Cook appeared in the movie "Waiting...," starring Ryan Reynolds ("Van Wilder") and Justin Long "Dodgeball"). Cook plays, coincidentally, a cook named Floyd, who works at a restaurant called Shenanigans.

His energetic performances and unique outlook on topics ranging from UFOs to love have led to his success and made him a cult favorite. At the end of his show, Cook left the audience wanting more as they gave him a standing ovation.