Thursday, May 9, 2019

The Book of Rannells: Comedy Bang! Bang!: Season 2, Episode 17 – “Clark Gregg Wears a Navy Blazer & White Collared Shirt” (2013)

This is a seriously weird little show.  Equal parts fake talk show and surreal comedy, it’s just supremely odd.  While there are bits that are just the right amount of absurd, it doesn’t quite work for me on the whole.

Scott Aukerman hosts his own (slightly-ramshackle) talk show, aided by his musician Reggie.  In this episode, he interviews Clark Gregg (who comes armed with some less-than-amazing MCU props,) as well as a lawyer campaigning to establish a national “spank-fee” holiday on behalf of “bad little boys.”

On the whole, just odd.  The usual fake talk show is interspersed with crazy random gags, like Scott’s usual “taking book” (he does a bit where different parts of his set “come alive” and he chats with them) being played that day by a human temp, or Reggie running out of the studio mid-show to chase down his true love.  While there are some funny bits – I like Scott’s silly back-and-forth with Clark Gregg as they increasingly fail to remember the title of Cujo – a lot of the humor is a little too awkward to be really effective for me.

Andrew Rannells plays Quinn Abernathy – not an official guest on the show, he crashes the interview with the Spank-Free Day guy.  He represents a coalition of good little boys, don’t you know, and he thinks a spank-free day should be earned by good behavior, not just given out for no reason.

Less silly-funny and more silly-dumb.  It’s a short bit, a few minutes of them going back and forth on the merits of bad vs. good little boys.  From what I can tell, the main reasons Rannells is here are because a) part of this good/bad debate is in song (and it’s almost laughable how bad the other guy’s singing is in comparison,) and b) he still some “wholesome” goodwill leftover from playing Elder Price (even though, at this point, he had snorted coke off a toilet seat on Girls, so…)  At any rate, it’s a goofy/dumb little bit that gets its job done in a weird way.

Recommend?

In General – Nope.  More awkward than funny, very “eh.”

Andrew Rannells – Naw – there isn’t enough here to be of interest.

Warnings

A little slapstick violence and some suggestive references.

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