This show is an insult to the intelligence of the audience. A standup routine that's all about "filth," i.e., crude, graphic discussions of sexual encounters would be funny if told with cleverness, wit, irony and funny punchlines. The mere discussion of crude, graphic sexual encounters is not in-and-of-itself funny. The comedian needs to make it funny. But Nikki never gets that far. The audience is expected to howl with laughter at the mere mention of Nikki's stories about what she did with her hands, mouth, butt and vagina and what her sex partner was doing. Every line seems designed to be cruder and more graphic than the preceding line. She describes it in the normal cadence of a standup comic but as you watch, you begin to wonder when the funny stuff will begin.
Her routine is unique because few comics are willing to devote an entire routine to their personal do's and don'ts of sex. Not because they're prudes. Comics will mine any field for comedy gold. The problem is making such talk funny.
Rodney Dangerfield once said, "My wife likes to talk to me when she's having sex. The other night she called me from a motel." That "sex joke" was funnier than anything Nikki Glasser said in an hour-long standup routine about her sex life.
The hour-long HBO special "My Dad Wrote a Porno" is a hilarious comic discussion of a badly written pornographic novel. It's presented in a clever, witty way. Sex talk can be funny when the comic makes it so. But Nikki Glaser's belief that it's funny just because she talks about it is misguided. She skipped the part most important to a comic: the humor.
Her routine is unique because few comics are willing to devote an entire routine to their personal do's and don'ts of sex. Not because they're prudes. Comics will mine any field for comedy gold. The problem is making such talk funny.
Rodney Dangerfield once said, "My wife likes to talk to me when she's having sex. The other night she called me from a motel." That "sex joke" was funnier than anything Nikki Glasser said in an hour-long standup routine about her sex life.
The hour-long HBO special "My Dad Wrote a Porno" is a hilarious comic discussion of a badly written pornographic novel. It's presented in a clever, witty way. Sex talk can be funny when the comic makes it so. But Nikki Glaser's belief that it's funny just because she talks about it is misguided. She skipped the part most important to a comic: the humor.