Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Comedy Fest review: The Pajama Men - The Last Stand to Reason

THE PAJAMA MEN – THE LAST STAND TO REASON


On a dollar-per-laugh basis these guys have to be the best value comedy act around. My OpenOffice spreadsheet calculations suggest that at $33 a pop you're paying about $0.04 per funny and are guaranteed a giggle mean of .7-1 per 30 seconds. That's statistics, people, and you can't argue with them because they won't listen. Statistics don't even have ears. It is OpenOffice though so the figures might be a bit out of whack.

What I don't understand is why TV networks aren't sending around crack hired mercenaries to kick down the doors of Pajama HQ and force them to sign in perpetuity contracts. Of course that wouldn't work because the pair are unstoppable. They're titanium-hard pure comedy power dressed up as a couple of dudes in nightwear. It's the comedy equivalent of taking the Terminator's metal skeleton and disguising it as Arnold Schwarzenegger using nothing but feta and crayons. And that's a true and accurate description since OpenOffice does recognise the word Schwarzenegger.

It's hard to watch other comics after seeing The Last Stand to Reason because it becomes patently obvious how far we usually have to travel for a joke. Most routines make liberal use of average-grade spackling to fill out the gaps between gags; The Pajama Men hone in on those bits and pump rock-solid laughter into them, and then use some kind of comedy polyfilla to squeeze MORE laughs in, then comedy spackle over the whole thing and give it a comedy sanding and a comedy paint and comedy varnish. They don't even wear protective clothing. They do it in their fucking pajamas.

1 comment:

richardwatts said...

Last year's show was deliriously funny - am very much looking forward to seeing them again.