After a one-hour recap special re-running a compressed version of last week's two-hour premiere, we settle in for the round of auditions, in Hell-A (do people other than Ted Casablancas call it that?) and Sydney, Australia.
Hollywood montage! Except this one is totally original, seriously. Hollywood sign! Walk of Fame! Palm trees! Uh, Grauman's Chinese theater...Hmmm, maybe we have seen this stuff before. A sign at the Improv says that the open casting call is at 10 AM. Most real comedians are going to bed at 10 AM. Bellamy is trying to get everybody excited to make some noise. Dude, it's 10 AM. Could we make noise after our third latte? Bellamy gives some high-fives and calls a guy wearing a suit "Spiffy." He picks out a cute young lady and calls her "Cutie." She says she moved to L.A. from New York. He asks how long she's been doing comedy. She hasn't before. Bellamy takes the dog out behind the shed, telling her she won't win. Surprise! People in the crowd are coerced into saying, "I am the Last Comic Standing." Can they add, "And they paid me $20 to say this?"
Inside the theater, Ant, Alonzo, and Kathleen give each other some pre-audition dap, sealing a pact to send forth not just the funny comics, but the ones who are represented by agents who are producers on the show. Wait, did I just type that out loud? Delete, delete, delete! Gerry Dee! Delete, delete, delete. First comic on the chopping block: Jon Reep, of Hickery, Sweet North Carolina. He makes a joke about smoking in L.A. (you can't) versus smoking in North Carolina (hells, yeah!). Kathleen likes it. Redneck humor. Kathleen tells him to save it for the show. Alonzo tells him to bring his caulking gun to the show. Ant's ears perk up until he realizes what he actually heard.
Alonzo wants to hear some good comics. Epileptic blur of comics. Maggie McCoy, Irishwoman from L.A., jokes about her crazy Irish mother. She's loud and screechy. Kathleen pity-chuckles. Ant is not into this. Alonzo passes. He talks about loving train wrecks.
Joseph Neibich, of Gilbert, Arizona. He tries some "I'm a racist, ha ha, jokes!" humor; Alonzo says he's not offended as a black guy, but that he's offended as a comic. That was funnier than the routine itself. Anthony Browning, of Long Beach. Weird guy. Not funny. Julius Mogyorossy, of L.A. Dirty Native American humor. Ant asks if he has any clean material. Nope! Gone! Lizzy Cooperman of Minneapolis sizes up the talent scouts. She's cute and awkward and very confident on stage despite her schtick. They all like her. She's in the big show.
The Bellamy picks up (literally), "Big E," a tiny, tiny woman from Dallas (or "D-Town," as Bellamy calls it). She cracks Bellamy up by joking that she rode a bike to L.A.
Stephen Glickman, San Diego. Big guy. Black trenchcoat. Stories about being molested for candy in a van and daddy's cross-dressing. Ant likes him. Oh really? Well, Alonzo loves him. How you like dem apples, Ant? Glickman is in. Alonzo loves that he's a psychopath. Hey, who doesn't? up is Dan McGowan from Denver. Caveman banging rock with stick. Alonzo stops him, but Ant wants to see more. The guy keeps banging. He doesn't make it in. Iva La'Shawn from Springfield, Ohio. She says she has crackheads in her family. Hey, who doesn't? She kills with a crackhead-wants-a-slice-of-bologna routine. "I come for my bologna!" may be the joke of the week. The scouts love her. Save it for the show. See ya tonight. : Dante (just Dante) from San Diego. He jokes about a DVD being produced in the middle of a crappy movie being made. It gets him out of the 10th circle of Hell (standing in line to audition for Last Comic Standing) and into the show. Chad Lehrman from Tucson. Mild-looking-guy joking about being edgy. Alonzo doesn't seem to get that the guy is being ironic-edgy. He mildly berates them. The scouts get up and leave in mock-offense and it's not very funny. Thank God there's a commercial to fall back on.
The Bellamy, man of the people, shoulder-bumps a bunch of dudes in line outside in solidarity then explains to the viewer how he's being a good host by hanging around for days. Inside, it's much more interesting as Alycia Cooper of Temple Hills, Maryland, takes the stage. Her delivery is great as she talks about guys she's dated, but Ant covers his face with a piece of paper and then complains about her making jokes about dating a homeless guy. I hate to do it again, but I have to remind Ant for the second week in a row that he did a whole routine on satellite radio about cleaning up and blowing a homeless guy. He doth protest too much. Methinks. Ant warns Alycia that she'd better "bring it" tonight or it's on Kathleen. Alycia tells him to consider it brought. Or "broughten"? "Brought'd"? "Brøtt"? I'm no English scholar. Offstage, Alycia jokes about Ant's toupee being on too tight, and says that the whole experience was a fun blur. Peter Prins of Trabuco Canyon, California, does a hacky bit about an Irish alien that involves a bullhorn and Irish-themed alien ears. My uncle was killed by an Irish space alien, you bastard! Too soon! Alonzo asks the guy if he really thought that would work. "No," he admits. He goes offstage with his sad prop satchel while Ant rants about people's shameless whoring for attention. I have to laugh at the irony of that.
Obligatory montage of comedians making silly faces and sounds. Can we just spin this off into its own series, Comedians Make The Unfunniest Noises? Obligatory snarky comment from the scouts.
More comics. Sean Rouse, Houston. He gets into the showcase by doing a long thing about Bobby Knight that, frankly, I don't get at all. It gets bleeped a couple of times. I know who Bobby Knight is, I know what the joke is referring to, but I still could not extract the juicy nectar of humor that obviously was contained therein, and lost from all the bleeping. Was there a cryptex involved? If you're going to present us with winning humor, let it be something we can at least understand. The judges like it, so he's in. But not with me, dammit. Sarah Colonna of Los Angeles. Very unfunny material about dating. Ant is cracking up the whole time and loves her. Alonzo and Kathleen clearly don't. Kathleen asks for a joke that's not about dating or alcohol. Unfunny bit about visiting friends back home who work at Wal-Mart and are overweight. This is why some people in red states hate a lot of people who live in L.A. Ant laughs some more, because he's an asshole, and tells Kathleen that Sarah took her direction and delivered. Poorly. Kathleen says yes to Alonzo's no, so hacky, unfunny, derivative, Ant-pleasing Sarah Colonna is in. But hey, who am I to judge? Sarah is exhilarated to reach millions of people. I hope you can reach them with better jokes later.
The showcase. Bellamy, wearing a shirt, a sweater, possibly an undershirt and a green suit jacket all at the same time somehow manages not to sweat himself into a large pool of water. He does a quick, fairly funny bit about liking how tough 50 Cent is. And then, before you can even blink, it's time to get the show rolling. A Bellamy set is like a tiny, palate-cleansing mint. (Chocolatey, of course.) Backstage, the comics are tense. Dante has a three-year-old kid, and says that the rewards of this show would be life-changing. Dante really needs this, he says. More attention to Sarah, who vows to wow Alonzo in the callback. Ant flogs Capitol One. What bullshit is this that people cheer for a bank? Trenchcoat Stephen Glickman is up first. He switches it up with a reverse-molestation joke. It's funnier than it sounds, but not by much. Dwayne Perkins from Brooklyn. He scores with an alcohol peer-pressure jokes that's funny and insightful. Yay, Dwayne. Lizzy Cooperman is back. Meh. Not so good. Thea Vidale of L.A., who says she's been doing this for twenty years, is . A hit-your-children-in-the-neck joke that actually works. I've been looking for one of those!
More backstage nervousness. Alycia Cooper frets about not being as experienced as everyone else. Jon Reep says that he works well under pressure. So do snow tires, but they're not very funny. Reep is up . He does some pretty good physical comedy and turns his belly and belly button into a bagel. Amazingly, it's not awful. Alycia's . Her Dick Cheney shooting riff is a little dated, but she ends on Al Sharpton's perm getting shot off, and that's not a bad place to be. She does well. Dante! He does a good joke about big-boned skeletons. Alonzo laughs heartily. For some reason, they cut to a woman in the audience who sits, stone-faced. Maybe she's married to a fat skeleton. Sean Rouse is back. His joke is not bleeped at all, and yet I still don't get it. Maybe I'm just not feeling the Rouse tonight, but I have no idea what the fuck this guy is doing. Maligned Sarah Colonna is up . Come on, Sarah. Prove me wrong. She goes with...a weak dating joke. Ant needs oxygen it's so funny to him. Kathleen applauds. Please don't let Sarah Colonna advance, God. Backstage, Thea waits and prays.
The results: moving on are Thea Vidale (yay!) who screams in glee, Sean Rouse (I guess I'm going to have to start feeling The Rouse) and...fucking Sarah Connola. Of course. Because why show so much of her lame ass if they weren't going to advance her to the round despite her weak material? Look, it's nothing personal. Maybe the rest of her set was brilliant and we were only shown the hacky, unfunny shit. But there you go. We were only shown her hacky, unfunny shit. So we must dislike her while we can. The Capitol One Audience Favorite: Dante. Hell yes! The last comic to go on...Jon Reep. Hey, that's cool. I can get behind that one. Poor Alycia says she'll be back year to tear the roof off the place. Or you could just suck like Sarah Calonna and see if that gets you further.
Australia! G'day! Unimaginative stock footage of koala bears and kangaroos. I half-expect to see a still of Paul Hogan. The Comedy Store in Sydney. Crazies in line. Alonzo says he wants to be surprised and he thinks a foreign comic will bring a different perspective and, of course, an accent. He says ladies love an accent. They also love a smooth, low, smart voice of a clean-shaven, good-lookin' dude. Alonzo. Just sayin'. Captain Australia from Sydney starts us off. He's wearing a cape and a mask made of the Australian flag. His whole schtick is the costume because when he's asked to perform, he does an unfunny bit about dating his friends' sisters. Alonzo suggests someone shoot him at the beginning of his act: if he lives, people have to listen to the rest of his jokes. The Captain exits on triumphant music. Adam Vincent of Melbourne, who is a hot dude (and I'm straight!), does one unfunny joke and one halfway-clever one about Jesus being a homeless guy undercover. Ant loves him, and the other scouts let him through. Adam whoops, loudly. Michael Akobi of Melbourne is . He's only done this twice before. It shows. Cut to Kathleen talking about the thick accents and...you guessed it...accent montage! Those wacky Aussies!
Gina Yashere from London is . Funny, short joke about her mother moving from Nigeria to England for the drizzly weather and subtle racism. She's in. Ant, wearing a baseball hat over his luxurious locks, says that Australian comics are wackier, but that you're not going to win by being a wacky court jester. Jimmy Lomax of Glasgow, wearing a big fake red wig and beard, does a song. It's excruciating. Mandy Hampson of Melbourne also has a big fake wig. Also not funny. Jackie Loeb of Sydney takes off her shirt. No. Andrea Powell of Melbourne dresses like an old lady. Also a no. We cut back to Jimmy Lomax, who exits wearing a fake plastic ass. Claire Hooper of Elsternwick, Australia. She does a funny joke about sign language signs she'll never need (one's about not having an arm). Kathleen loves her. She's in. Claire dances. "Davo" from Brisbane. He's not funny. At all. In fact, they stop him to tell him that, and then when he walks off, Ant tells him that they'd love to see him tonight. I have no idea what the fuck is going on with this show right now. Is Davo in or out? If he's in, how could that possibly be? Maybe Davo will have to face off against Sarah Colonna at some point and the universe will implode from the suckage. Fiona O'Loughlin from Alice Springs is and she's as cute as her name. She jokes about being a terrible mother and wife, but seems so self-effacing that the jokes work. She's in. Lawrence Mooney of Elwood, Australia. He jokes about homophobia, and Ant loses his shit. In the good way. Mooney is in.
Showcase. No Bellamy to intro the show. Gina Yashere is up first. Great accent, great material, great delivery. She has to go through to the round. Michael Williams of Warrnambool uses visual aids for his jokes, and they're not too shabby. (The jokes and the visuals.) He's different, at least. "Inside-out-cat" is a close second for joke of the night. Adam Vincent is up. He repeats his undercover Jesus joke and it's not much funnier than the first time. Fiona O'Laughlin's . She jokes about smoking, and it's not as fresh as her first set. Claire Hooper jokes about an ex. Meh. Sam Borwing of Sydney does a segment about DVD anti-piracy warnings. Funny punchline. Lawrence Mooney is up. Instead of homophobia, he's not tackling xenophobia. I don't really see it, but the scouts seem to like him.
The results: Fiona O'Laughlin rightly makes it through. Love her! is Adam Vincent. Gah. I think Ant just has a crush. Gina Yashere goes through. Yay! One spot left: it goes to Lawrence Mooney. Huh. Fine, whatever.