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Comedian stands up to recent hype

For those of us burned out on the comedic inanity of Dane Cook, one of the natural directions to look was toward up-and-coming funnyman Daniel Tosh. In a mere three years since the release of his first CD/DVD combo, “True Stories I Made Up,” Tosh has gone from an unknown face on late night TV to the head of the comedic pack, evidenced by Friday’s sold-out Barrymore Theatre performance.

Warming up the evening’s crowd was Los Angeles comic Jasper Redd. Best described as a black Mitch Hedberg, Redd’s brand of observational comedy seen through LA eyes left the audience in stitches. Redd’s best moment came when he explained his fear of the Whopper Jr., because Whopper Jr.’s existence means the original Whopper has been having sex.

After Redd got the crowd laughing, Tosh took the stage to a thunderous applause from an audience already on their second or third beer. Right off the bat, he explained that there is a huge divide between Tosh on TV and Tosh in concert.

“I’m going to offend some of you,” he cautioned before launching into a series of barbs against Heath Ledger, Chris Benoit and the victim of the recent San Francisco Zoo tiger attack. Tosh continued his set with reckless abandon as he jumped from topic to topic on seemingly unrelated tangents. In fact, he pointed out to the audience that he is among a minority of comedians whose jokes start on one topic and end on a radically different note.

Following the release of his latest Comedy Central special on DVD last summer, Tosh has been making the rounds in the nation’s comedy clubs. Friday’s performance showcased all new jokes and shied away from material people already knew since, as Tosh himself put it, “you’d know the punch line and wouldn’t at all be surprised.”

In one of the night’s most side-splitting moments, Tosh explained how he always tells the truth when his girlfriend presents him with a hypothetical scenario. For instance, when his girlfriend asked if he would still love her if she lost a leg, he said that not only would he not, but he could be guaranteed to push her over as he was breaking up with her. 

As the night wore on, Tosh used the audience as a test group for material he had just written to gauge their response on whether or not he should use the jokes in the future. This framework, of course, was devised to make the audience shrug off the clunkers. However, some of these, like a joke about his city putting speed bumps on a road where a girl was killed, and what her parents must think of when they drive over the speed bumps where their daughter died went over very well.

Following a solid hour-and-a-half of standup, the curtain dropped, and an audience short of breath from laughing too much exited the theater. In his time on stage, Tosh proved that he is one of the nation’s most cutting-edge, quick-witted comedians. Tosh is certainly a man to keep an eye on in the future, as he is guaranteed to do some very funny things.