I’m a big fan of Jeff
Dunham. He’s one of my all-time favorite
standup acts. Thus, I was really looking
forward to watching his new Netflix special, Beside Himself. However,
after finally getting to watch it, well, let’s just say I’ve seen him do
better.
Heck, here’s the thing: not only
do I think Jeff’s a phenomenal ventriloquist, but I also deem him a comedy genius. And thus, I know he can significantly
be more clever, hilarious, and dynamic with his material and execution. Beside
Himself is already his ninth special, and I believe that every single one
of his eight previous specials is superior to it.
Maybe it’s because he’s now less
willing to push the envelope in a world that’s getting more and more politically
correct. He still gets somewhat edgy in
this special, but there isn’t as much bite to the humor as before. In addition, it has no distinctive moments that
I feel I would be able to remember for a long time. In fact, there are a couple of bits here that
felt like retreads of past bits, which had had better forms and deliveries. There’s also this recurring joke about one of
Jeff’s twin sons doing something to their dog, which is a bit of a mixed bag.
That being said, I still find Beside Himself to be fresh and enjoyable. It could probably be the biased fan in me talking,
but seriously, if you’re a Jeff Dunham fan, it’s impossible to not have a good time
with it at the very least. And I think
that even though it’s not on par with Jeff’s best performances, it’s still worthwhile
and funny. It still got to make me laugh
a lot.
As usual, Jeff’s “Big Four” –
Walter, Bubba J, Peanut, and Achmed – have their respective sets here. And they generally turn out exactly as how I
thought they would be. The highlight for
long-time fans is probably José Jalapeño on a Stick showing up once again during
the Peanut set – his first appearance since Minding
the Monsters.
Jeff also attempts to shake
things up by debuting a new dummy – Larry, the jittery, chain-smoking,
stressed-out personal adviser to President Donald Trump. Through him, he’s able to make jabs at Trump in
a moderate, all-in-good-fun way – in a partly cringey, partly successful
attempt to please both anti- and pro-Trump people. But the exclamation point that Jeff does with
Larry is throwing shade at celebrities who believe themselves to be smarter
than they really are and would go out obnoxiously lecturing the rest of the
country/world.
Introducing a new character is
cool and all, but I wish Jeff did something more memorably unique with this
special. Like, how cool it would have been
if Jeff did something similarly epic as his infomercial bit with Little Jeff in
Unhinged in Hollywood or Achmed the
Dead Terrorist disguising himself as “Jacque Merde the French Terrorist” in
order to screw with censors in All Over the Map. For
example, I can’t remember him ever operating two of the Big Four at the same
time. Doing such a thing here for the
first time would have given this special the same iconic moment as those
aforementioned.
In the end, I had fun with Jeff Dunham: Beside Himself. This may be Jeff’s weakest special so far,
but it’s still pretty hilarious. In
fact, it’s much better than the best work of many standup comics.
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