Brian Regan: The Epitome of Hyperbole

Named after a punchline in the special, Brian Regan's Epitome of Hyperbole is a surprise in a number of ways. For starters, it was developed for Comedy Central, it's clean, and it's funny. Seriously, when is the last time you've seen a comic do a set for more than a few minutes without being bleeped? After appearing on numerous shows and giving us catchphrases like "Take Luck," it's good to see that the man can still tell a joke-- even if the set is fairly impersonal and surprisingly timeless. This is both great, and not.

A lot of comics lean heavily on pop culture, politics, and current events. I don't think there was a single Bush reference in the entire show, which is pretty amazing considering about, oh, 100% of the stand-up you'll see has something to do with the man in the White House. Instead, Brian Regan goes for some fairly general subject matter. Like books. Also, he does a few minutes on the word "manslaughter," which is the closest his set really gets to the level of a PG-rated movie.

This is not edgy comedy. It's not bad, and it seems like it'd be a difficult set to pen. Rather than call other people or groups out on being stupid, the bulk of the laughs are at Brian Regan's expense. For example, he doesn't know a lot about art, or mingling at parties-- and the jokes work really well. I feel like a tool trying to write them up for you right now because trying to explain the set is a fairly difficult process. It's funny. You could let your mom watch it, or even your kids, and odds are you won't feel like a dork for laughing along. If you were a kid and you discovered comedy through this act, you wouldn't hate yourself down the road like you might were it any of a number of people who have had specials on Comedy Central as of late.

The Comedy Central special is so squeaky-clean you almost feel like you can't trust it. It's like a bag of M&Ms-- timeless, fairly enjoyable, and likely to be aired on Comedy Central constantly for years. (Well, maybe not the last one.) A DVD of the special will be in stores like nowish.