Dane Cook

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Sept. 3, 2006 | Dane Cook looks pleased with himself. He's just arrived onstage in Boston as 18,000 people scream his name and all make a gesture with their hands that looks like a cross between the finger and the sign for "Rock on!"

"What's up?" Cook bellows into his microphone, and the crowd goes nuts.

"When you're in the wrong relationship, with somebody awful, I call that a relationshit." (Huge laugh.)

"Oh, and then you have that makeup sex. Guys, you know that makeup sex..." (Appreciative hooting and applause.)

"When I'm at the movies, I get so into it, that I talk to the screen?" (Clapping, laughing.)

"She must wash her vagina with a dirtier vagina." (Uproarious laughter.)

"We're all gonna lie, we're all gonna cry, and we're all gonna take painful shits." (Screaming, applause.)

If the crowd loves Cook, they're not the only ones. His performance, taped by HBO and named "Dane Cook Vicious Circle," will premiere Monday, Sept. 4 (9 p.m. EDT, check listings). This summer, HBO also aired "Tourgasm," a look behind the scenes at Cook's tour of the college circuit with three other stand-up comedians last year. And according to the Hollywood Reporter, Cook has a deal to develop a scripted series pilot for HBO, and HBO has exclusive rights to Cook's work in "all nontraditional media platforms."

Why is HBO forsaking more sophisticated programming like "Deadwood" for a glorified frat boy? Maybe because that frat boy is alarmingly popular, and represents a potential cash cow for the financially strapped cable channel. Cook's second comedy album, "Retaliation," hit the Billboard charts at No. 4, making it the highest charting comedy album since Steve Martin's "A Wild and Crazy Guy" in 1978. Cook's "Tourgasm" podcast has been at or near the top of the iTunes most downloaded list since it debuted in June. This October, Cook stars opposite Jessica Simpson in the comedy "Employee of the Month," and has been rumored to be seeing Simpson, perhaps a calculated move on the part of some wily publicist.

But Cook's "Tourgasm" series may be the biggest indication of just how far HBO is willing to swerve from its more traditional, more sophisticated fare for the sake of its bottom line. Cook brings three of his comedian friends, Robert Kelly, Gary Gulman and Jay Davis, on a cross-country tour of colleges, intent on capturing all of the high jinx and hilarity on camera. Unfortunately, the guys start to get on each other's nerves almost immediately, and instead of joking around about it, they end up yelling, stomping off and then talking trash about each other for days afterward. This isn't spirited bickering, mind you, it's a bunch of tense confrontations in restaurants where two guys yell at each other while everyone else stares glumly at their plates. Even when the group rents Segways, apparently to approximate some of the good-natured, boyish fun of "Jackass," the guys knock into each other, take awkward spills and seem annoyed afterward. At Niagara Falls, we're treated to several minutes of footage of the guys threatening to throw each other's hats into the falls. And during a game of touch football, Kelly falls, tearing a ligament. Where Johnny Knoxville might moan dramatically while his friends laugh and jeer, Kelly whimpers to Cook, "Hold my hand," and everyone looks palefaced and upset. Woo-hoo, good times!

To understand just how unbearable "Tourgasm" remains from start to finish, imagine a cross between Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedian" (except the jokes aren't all that funny and the comedians involved aren't that interesting or clever) and MTV's "Jackass" (except the teasing and physical pranks aren't that fun or dramatic and they end in angry recriminations, sulking and serious injuries). In short, "Tourgasm" may be the least worthwhile series ever to air on HBO -- "Arli$$" included.

So what explains Cook's popularity? His comedy is most notable for what it lacks: a critique of the political climate (Dennis Miller, George Carlin, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher), a commentary on our culture (Chris Rock, David Chappelle), a slightly tweaked perspective (Ray Romano, Steven Wright, Jerry Seinfeld), outrageously dirty material (Eddie Murphy, Andrew Dice Clay), or just a goofy, oddball routine (Howie Mandel). Although his delivery can be chafingly smug, Cook doesn't present himself as anything special. He likes video games and chicks and sports and other general-purpose guy stuff. He's not particularly baffled by the world, or all that perceptive, or all that self-aware. He's a little self-deprecating, a little bit cutesy and a little bit aggressive, but most important, he treats mundane experiences like they're huge revelations: Breakup sex is the best, right? Right! Sometimes you have to lie to get out of stuff you don't want to do. I know you've done it, too, bro!

Even Cook's delivery isn't noteworthy or unique; he sprinkles "bro" and "dude" into every story, he's terrible at impressions and when he's imitating a woman, he inexplicably speaks in a high voice with a lisp, as if he's doing a homophobic imitation of a gay man.

But Cook's is the sort of non-threatening humor that appeals to people who, when watching Jon Stewart or Jerry Seinfeld, don't feel like they're in on the joke. With Cook, you're always in on the joke. Even if you've never been in a bad relationship or had breakup sex, you can just flash that "SuFi" and you're part of the club.

The SuFi, in fact, embodies the appeal of Dane Cook. Short for "Superfinger," it arose from a skit about Cook's quest for an upgraded version of giving someone the finger -- with the thumb, middle finger and ring finger extended. The emptiness of the gesture sums up the frat-boy camaraderie among Cook's fans, and his popularity among college students. In college, after all, jokes aren't really jokes at all, they're just code words for shared experiences. It's considered funny to refer to Burger King as "The BK Lounge" or to refer to a sandwich as a "sangwich" (we did this when I was in school, and Cook uses both terms often). And there's always a code for "You just got dissed!" (Burn, see ya, smell ya later, doh) and a code for "Rock on!" (sweet, dude, party, hell yeah).

Such multipurpose phrases are always vague, always applicable to almost any situation and always easy to understand when you're falling-down drunk. The content, in other words, is secondary to the fact that it's shared. Pretty much everything that goes on between Cook and the audience is just another way of saying, "I hear ya, bro!" Far from banal, this for Cook constitutes "a holy shit moment," as he puts it on his Web site. He and his crew are quite obviously aware of the appeal of such code words. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Robert Kelly remarks that, "If nothing else comes from 'Tourgasm,' the catchphrases are gonna be huge." (In case you're unfamiliar with how common such catchphrases are, the magazine hilariously refers to Kelly's "Hold my hand, man" as one.)

From his sloppy college kid look to his avoidance of anything political, cultural or remotely critical, Cook aims at appealing to those vast numbers of kids who haven't really developed any interests yet, and are most of all focused on having fun with a big group of people. While Seinfeld or Rock or Carlin or Miller react against the world, working themselves into a lather over just how idiotic and bizarre other people's behavior is, Cook's stories all boil down to the most familiar, relatable experiences he's had. His humor doesn't require even a glance at the wider world; it strengthens the bonds within a homogenous group. "Isn't it crazy when you..." or "How weird is it when..." By celebrating the myopia of the young, Cook has become the hottest comedian around.

Some have accused Cook of stealing material from Louis CK (the clips in question can be heard here, with Louis CK up first), but like all of Cook's skits, this material arises from fairly common experiences and could easily be a coincidence. What's most interesting about comparing the two clips, in fact, is how much more appealing Louis CK's delivery is than Cook's.

But Dane Cook isn't about to play down his talent or his successes. "Vicious Circle is what I would call my show because that is what I fought for endlessly for my young adult life," he writes on his Web site. "To come home and leave my name in the history books with this one gift God blessed me with." So his triumphant homecoming is best summed up by the words "Vicious Circle"? Once again, Cook has latched onto a random phrase that seems to bear no relation to his intended meaning, yet another odd choice by a guy whose popularity is just as unfathomable as his message. Luckily for Cook, millions of young people nationwide don't seem to care either way.

and nobody bothers to mention that this is a direct rip-off of the much funnier comedians of comedy tour series on comedy central.

This is totally the vibe I am getting. He just said something like "I hope the atheist comes back as a tree after he dies and then they make paper out of him and print the bible on it." Uhhhhh...
Also, "When I say gesundheit, I feel like I am honoring Hitler." WTF?

How soon we have all forgetten Dream On, Autopsy 1-11 and Real Sex 1-30. Sophisticated shit, that.

> He just said something like "I hope the atheist comes back as a tree after he dies and then they make paper out of him and print the bible on it."

He is one confused Catholic!

I can't be the only person who finds this phrase fucking fantastic.

Not until our critical faculties are stolen, eaten, digested, crapped and flushed.

http://www.evilscience.net/institutions/halloffame/eyebrows.gif

"I don't call them movies, I call the cinematic adventures."
"I talk so much at the movies, the black people behind me are like, 'shhhhh!'"
"This is the drink holder, or if the movie's bad, you can blow me."

haha i bet louis ck wrote this one too.

I could never live like this.

Dane Cook, pain-free comedian

Ever wonder what would happen if comedy lost its angst? Just take a look at its new smiley face.

By Paul Brownfield, Times Staff Writer

COMEDIANS aren't supposed to be happy, just the opposite, but Dane Cook is the Disneyland of comics: He's the happiest, most uncomplicated place on Earth.

He's Seacrest-psyched, boy voted most likely. Cutest. Funniest. Coolest. For Cook, this is no ironic pose à la Andy Kaufman; it's a whole insufferable ethos, integral to the rise of his career. He's become huge by asserting that the comic mind does not come from alienation and restlessness but from adoration and social connection — the comic as your instant-messaging best pal.

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To watch his HBO special "Vicious Circle," which airs Monday night, is to be both disappointed in Cook for foisting his surface act on people with such energetic impunity and in audiences for drinking the stuff in as if it were vanguard.

You could also, for variety's sake, be disappointed in HBO for giving the wrong comedian the right kind of platform — a 90-minute concert act recorded recently at the FleetCenter arena in Cook's native Boston, apparently in front of some 18,000 people.

To the question, "What happened to stand-up?" Cook might very well be the depressing answer: It put product in its hair, dumbed itself down and became as eager to please as a trainee at a TGI Friday's. And still it got itself a series, "Tourgasm," which ended its run on HBO last month.

"Tourgasm" was a conspicuously slight and infomercial-like ad to boost Cook's rabid popularity among college-age fans; the rest was filler, Cook and his three comedian underlings in various states of homoerotic, roughhousing repose.

Now HBO, as part of a multiplatform deal, presents Cook in a stand-up special. These were once upon a time the province of active minds and voices (Robert Klein, George Carlin, Roseanne, Chris Rock). But having long watched the brand slacken, HBO has now lent it to the boy most likely to help them succeed wooing younger subscribers.

It makes sense, business sense, anyway: Cook might very well be the next Rob Schneider, or Tom Green, or Ashton Kutcher, or some three-headed beast incorporating some of each. ("Employee of the Month," a comedy in which he costars with rumored girlfriend Jessica Simpson, opens next month. Others are on the assembly line.)

*

An online connection, the payoff

COOK, then, is a comic-on-the-verge, but with the twist of the new — he's huge among the kids who download his bits off iTunes and onto their cell-phones.

It was on the Internet that Cook, who'd been kicking around in clubs and TV series for years, launched himself anew, advertising his cute-boy looks and general availability for human-to-comedian contact.

Single White Comic Seeks Fan Base for Meaningful Relationship. Reportedly on a $25,000 gamble, Cook launched his own website, and his dogged use of the popular networking site MySpace (where he supposedly has over 1 million "friends") is seen as a model for building one's career, with the Improv chain signing up with MySpace this summer to offer their acts as chat friends.

"Treat the Web like your house," Cook advised comics in Wired magazine of the importance of Internet politicking. "When people knock, answer."

And yet there's something perverse about this. Comics, the best of them, are uniquely antisocial beings offstage, unreachable and idiosyncratic, the audience a kind of natural enemy to be won over with raw need and biting truth. Even multimillionaire Jerry Seinfeld refused to cash in on his popularity post-"Seinfeld," instead forcing himself as an artist to win over audiences through the crafting of a new act, as chronicled in his documentary "Comedian."

But Seinfeld is of the generation raised on Lenny Bruce and Klein. Cook, it seems, is looking to take the audience to lunch.

"There's so many things that I want to let you guys into my world about," is the ungrammatical sentence with which Cook greets his fans at the FleetCenter.

They're screaming like he's Justin Timberlake, and maybe he is. For what is demoralizing is the swagger in the face of such vanilla material, the total absence — like Tom Cruise on Oprah's couch — of self-loathing.

In Cook's act there is no war, no class divide, no crime, no fear, no news, no world. There is only solicitation, the "so many things that I want to let you guys into my world about."

"I'll say this, man," goes one set-up, "the thing I love, even more than the movie itself, I love — we all love — the previews.

"And I'll tell you why." Pause. "Because it doesn't matter what anybody here does for a living, whatever your occupation is, the reason you love the previews, it's because it's the one time, in all our lives, that we get to be a critic. Because you know as soon as that preview ends you're gonna turn to the person next to you, and you're gonna review that film."

At this point I experienced several strange feelings — déjà vu that I was back at the Improv and it was actually 1987 mixed with a sense that I'd misplaced the punch line. Fortunately, Cook proceeded to illustrate the joke he'd just taken too many words to say.

He loves this, the gestures. He pantomimes, in fact, nearly everything that comes out of his mouth. Two fingers down the side of the cheek for crying, wiggling the fingers for typing an e-mail, scribbling motion for writing down directions.

It's a way not to have to bother with language. Cook is disinterested in words and sometimes sloppy with references (he doesn't mean Danny Gans in one joke, he probably means Lance Burton; he doesn't mean baseball umpire in another, he means catcher).

*

A positive spin

"THERE'S a stigma with comics that they are all so dark and ball-busty and negative," Cook said in July, during the summer TV press tour promoting "Tourgasm" and "Vicious Circle."

"And sure. There's that element," he said. "I don't roll with that. I never hung out with that, you know, and that was even what 'Tourgasm' was about, was putting out a more positive, productive take on what a — what a comic is."

Comedy has traditionally sprung up as a reaction against oppression, internal and external — from the pogrom to the contemporary neurosis. Cook's view flies in the face of what we know, generally, about every significant stand-up voice from Milton Berle on forward. Onstage, Cook exudes the need for attention that all comics have but none of the pain behind the need.

To be sure, feelings of outsider-ness do not guarantee you'll be funny. Drug addiction contributed to performances by Bruce in which he was a paranoid rambler; Kaufman delighted in leaving his audiences out in the cold and openly hostile. But it's the vulnerability that contributed to their artistry.

It seemed more than a little symbolic, in fact, that Cook was blowing up last year while Mitch Hedberg, a comedian whose following mirrored Cook's (Internet fan base, transcendent rock-star aura), died of a drug overdose in a New Jersey motel. Onstage, Hedberg cut an odd Kurt Cobain-like figure — tall, skinny, beatnik clothes, hair over his eyes. He talked in idiosyncratic, absurdist mumbles ("I tried to walk into a Target, but I missed"; "I don't own a microwave, but I do have a clock that occasionally cooks [things]") and was afraid to lock eyes with the audience. He feared the very thing at which Cook excels — tearing down the wall between the audience and himselfbut he loved that which Cook doesn't: the economy, the importance, of words.

Hedberg's memorial was held at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills; half a dozen comics eulogized him, and it was odd, the sight of them reduced to tears, or trying to reduce themselves, insofar as comedians can feel for one another. Nobody deplored the drug habit that had claimed Hedberg's life. It was understood, at least among his peers, that Hedberg's act would not have existed without his demons. It's what you figure about Dave Chappelle, who walked away from a $50-million Comedy Central deal to hide away in South Africa. Or Drake Sather, a comedian and writer ("The Larry Sanders Show," "Zoolander") who on March 3, 2004, shot himself to death in his downtown loft. "On the wall above the head of the bed are multiple notes," the coroner's report reads, in part. "These notes are to the police officers and crime scene photographers and coroner staff. Many of the notes are humorous comments about suicide and the end of life."

*

Committed to keeping in touch

"YOU know, Dane … we put the first episode of 'Tourgasm' up on iTunes, and it became the No. 1 podcast — the No. 1 downloaded podcast almost instantly," HBO Chairman Chris Albrecht told the press in July. "So his audience is an important audience, I think, to the future of HBO, which is, who are the subscribers coming into the category, who are the young people that might want to subscribe. And for them, having Dane is very important."

Not long ago, I signed up to get e-mail alerts for Cook's "Dane-casts" — the news about his life and career that Cook uploads onto his website.

"Everybody's saying, 'Dane, what's going on, "Tourgasm" is coming to a close,' " Cook said on July 23, from a hotel room in Vancouver, Canada, where he was shooting a movie.

"You gotta watch tonight," he said, "I go back and visit my high school, where I graduated from. And it's pretty — and it's pretty touching. Very unexpected things happened when I went back to Arlington High School."

He then responded to some e-mail, some of which had to do with the death of his mother July 3 from cancer.

"The support from everybody has just been really incredible," he said. "It's new. It's a new thing for me to be dealing with, but I'm really OK."

As he went through more e-mails, a song by Weezer came on his iPod. "IPod shuffle's being good to me today," he said. "A couple more of these and then I gotta split, I gotta vamoose, gotta study my lines for tomorrow."

This is, for now, the Cook legacy: He signals the end of the comedian as we knew him — reclusive, angry, socially awkward, anguished, self-defeating.

Negative.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul.brownfield@latimes.com

Brownfield is a Times TV critic.

Since the overwhelming majority of the television consumption in my entire life, from Age 3 to Age 35, has been purely passive -- just some comforting noise to have on while I work on the computer, file baseball cards, floss teeth, have sex -- no, I don't go thru life cultivating neurotic tics over guilt for not catching The Comeback or Big Love.

daddino what's yr prob with autopsy???

Dude, it's got dead bodies in it.

Somewhere there's a message board where good-looking, optimistic, genuine Dane Cook fans are making fun of jaded, hyper-aware, depressing people like us.

That message board is called the parking lot of a Checkers.

That message board is called the a dorm

That message board is called a dorm, even.

Dane Cook: Mario Cantone is so gay, that when gay people walk down the street and see him, they're like, "Fag".
Mario Cantone: I'm still waiting for you to come out, bitch!

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pwnt

*grinds teeth, blood boils, etc*

his jokes have decent premises but the actual jokes are terrible and his persona is terrible - i honestly believe that he makes his fans feel okay about being misogynist whether he intends to or not

this thread really needs shirtless jay bl4nch4rd pic

*grinds teeth, blood boils, etc*

I'm with Jordan, actually -- that video makes him look like his show is going to be funny. Nobody really cares about bad taste. Bad taste is just in-the-know. And whatever, it all lives or dies on the punchline, and the dude has no punchlines. He's not funny. Period.

"what is it about bookstores that makes people think they can lay on the fucking ground?" <- i think this is a good premise for a joke - gaffigan or galifinakis could do something with this - but there's just nothing good from him after that

I think you have to have been that guy in the bookstore to really make a good joke out of it.

Or at least empathize with him. Hate is never pretty, as they say, but it can be very funny. But you have to make yourself the victim of the hate and also take the audience along with you. It's tricky and it's not easy.

I mean, otherwise you're just making fun of foreigners.

Saw some stand-up of his for the first time last night since he was on MTV Awards a few years ago, and his body language was identical to a youth minister on a christian television station.

Dane Cook Parlays New Burger King Menu Item Into Hour-Long HBO Special

I think you have to have been that guy in the bookstore to really make a good joke out of it.

― Brundlefly (kenan), Friday, June 12, 2009 4:09 AM (8 hours ago)

otm

Caught a few minutes of this guy's act on the weekend and yeah, he's awful. The worst aspects of Sam Kinison and Dennis Miller but at least those guys had decent material. That "Family Guy" parody was pretty OTM ("Is he saying something funny?" "I dunno, but he's moving around a lot.")

http://www.avclub.com/articles/so-apparently-dane-cooks-standup-set-was-unusually,67943/

Even his appearance on Louie did nothing to rehabilitate him in my eyes.

Someone should throw him in front a train.

I've been thinking about Dead Pool 2013 already and he's looking like a likely candidate.

i honestly believe that he makes his fans feel okay about being misogynist whether he intends to or not

― let free dom ring (J0rdan S.), Friday, June 12, 2009 3:46 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is a hilarious thing for a rap fan to concern troll about

I'm mistrustful of other comics' first-hand reports on Dane Cook.

That "Family Guy" parody was pretty OTM ("Is he saying something funny?" "I dunno, but he's moving around a lot.")

i'm all for ripping on Dane Cook but this is some serious pot/kettle shit right here

this is how its done right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QVvgMro3D0

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm198/betani316/hotdane.jpg

"So I heard that the guy came into the theater about 25 minutes into the movie," he said. "And I don't know if you've seen the movie, but the movie is pretty much a piece of s--t. Yeah, spoiler alert."
He continued, "I know that if none of that would have happened, pretty sure that somebody in that theater, about 25 minutes in, realizing it was a piece of s--t, was probably like, ‘Ugh f------ shoot me.'"
The crowd's response was a mix of jeers, laughter and cheers.

damn son, canceled before it even aired, that's a new low

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/10/12/nbc-cancels-mid-season-comedy-next-caller-before-it-airs/152807/

NBC coming to their senses?

dane cook

the tesco value ryan reynolds

chicken sangwich

cane dook

10th anniversary of peak dane

it took me surprisingly long to realize that "Dane Cook Sucks" video above was not actually him. He's that bad.

dang was hoping he had died

it took me surprisingly long to realize that "Dane Cook Sucks" video above was not actually him. He's that bad.

"When you're in the wrong relationship, with somebody awful, I call that a relationshit." (Huge laugh.)

"In 2010, Cook auditioned for the role of Captain America for Captain America: The First Avenger, although the director, Joe Johnston, did not have him on the short list for the part."

in some alternate universe there's an avengers movie where all the roles are played by losers, burnouts and general d-listers from the late 90s and early 00s: dane cook as cap, freddie prinze jr as iron man, david spade as hawkeye, tara reid as black widow, ed norton as the hulk

What if...?

lol

Dane Cook reminds me of a New School Evangelist. I totally thought he was going to bust into some "BUT THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT OUR LORD JESUS WHO DIED FOR OUR SINS" when I watched his DVD.
-- Huk-L (handsomishbo...), December 15th, 2005.

nailed it

chicken sangwich

thank god this dude's career burned out

sweet and sour sauce......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................on my pussy

or as I like to call it, "The Wal"

Dane Cook is a big believer that age ain't nothing but a number

same as IQ

two adults in a relationship, big news