Did Jim Gaffigan really release another special so soon? Yes. Is it good? Also yes.
I don’t know how Jim Gaffigan can create so many jokes so quickly. Working with his wife Jeannie, he definitely knows his voice and his point of view. With this hour and fifteen minutes of all-new comedy, Gaffigan doesn’t veer far from the formula that he knows works, but it still feels fresh.
What does Gaffigan talk about?
He starts by talking about how fat he’s getting. It seems like this is also how he opened his Mr. Universe special. That was mainly because his pants were too tight. This time, he approaches his weight from a different article of clothing, the untucked shirt. While talking about this, he also is able to make fun of the company, Untuckit, which claims to have invented a way for men to wear untucked shirts.
He talks about his kids, and how parents lie to their kids all the time. For example, “You wouldn’t like this ice cream. It’s too spicy.” I often told my kids that food I didn’t want to share tasted like medicine.
He also talks about traveling without his kids and how delightful it is.
He talks about Dateline, the news magazine TV show that went all-in on murder stories.
He talks about the weather – How hot it is in Las Vegas.
He talks about traveling and not wanting to do stuff.
I don’t want to list all of the major sections of Quality Time. Even though a lot of these topics may seem like they are cliche’ comedy jokes, Gaffigan is able to tell these jokes in a fresh and fun way. This special is very much worth it.
Personally, my favorite part of this special was seeing the evolution of Gaffigan’s storytelling. For so long so much of his bits were talking about a particular thing, Hot Pockets, Seafood, Hotel Pools, and then just making as many humorous observations and possible. In this special, Gaffigan had a great story about getting his appendix removed, followed by seeing a bear while the family was in Alaska. He gave joke after joke as he moved the story along. His jokes about how he got to the hospital, his post-surgery experience, the cost of it all.
Gaffigan’s pile on style joke (like hot pockets) for this special was about horses and gambling on horse races. He was able to stretch this section of jokes out, and do his patented cut-away to the audience-thoughts-voice. Gaffigan is so great at pointing to the things that we all thought were strange and making a ton of jokes about them.
Of course, Gaffigan is one of the least offensive comedians working today. I would definitely recommend this special. You could easily watch this with your teenagers. They would probably enjoy this. The other fun thing about comedians like Jim Gaffigan is that watching or listening to his comedy as a family can create a lot of shared laughs.
This is available on Amazon Prime Video, you can also find Noble Ape on Amazon Prime. If you don’t have prime, Gaffigan has several specials available on Netflix.
JasonDeuman.com 