Adam Carolla Is No Longer Bothering to Write Jokes
Well, Adam Carolla superfans, you can’t say your favorite comic didn’t warn you. He has dubbed his new tour “Adam Carolla is Unprepared” and it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds likes -- the comic putting a stranglehold on the microphone and freestyle riffing for an hour and a half. Sure beats writing material!
Carolla, revealed as Avocado last year on The Masked Singer, “has agreed to come on stage with no idea of what he is going to say,” according to his website. “Instead, the audience will supply ideas for Adam to spin into comedy gold right on the spot.”
To be fair, it’s not exactly clear that Carolla the stand-up comic ever wrote comedy material before taking the stage. His site currently bills him as “the funniest comedian to have never written a joke,” which is a little like saying you’re “the best heart surgeon to have never performed a triple-bypass.” Sure, you might technically be the best in that particular subset of your profession, but it isn’t necessarily something to brag about.
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Judge for yourself -- here’s Unprepared Carolla delivering the goods after being given the suggestion “coffee.” (Spoiler alert: Adam likes coffee.) Honestly, it’s hard to tell what this comedy would sound like to paid audience members, given the multiple jump cuts in this clip — was there a lot of Adam scratching his chin thinking up his next take that ended up on the cutting room floor? And if you’re going to edit, you couldn’t cut the part where Carolla calls a woman a “feckless c***” because she asked for low foam on her latte?
Reviews on ticketing outlet goldstar.com for Carolla’s make-it-up-as-I-go tour are mostly positive:
“Great show, super funny, and the place was packed,” raved Mike from the OC. “Adam is a genius.”
Rhea rated the show four stars out of five, noting that while the show was a “different comedy setup than my husband and I have been used to, we didn't have to wait too long and got good seats.”
Cindi was one of the only semi-disappointed fans, doling out a three-star review: “It was not a collection of funny lines and pre-rehearsed like a regular standup show. He has a daily podcast show, so this was just another day of talking, and man, he can talk. If he were alone, he would still be talking.”
The bottom line is people who enjoy Carolla’s free-form rants on his long-running podcast will probably enjoy the comic’s unscripted approach since it’s what they’re used to getting anyway. The difference is the podcast is free, while tour tickets are going anywhere from $45 to $65. We’ll take the version with the Blue Apron ads -- at least we get three meals and free shipping.
