Comedy Death Ray This Week: Superb Edition

Because we needed to get out, we caught Comedy Death Ray in Los Angeles this week! The lineup was indeed fantastic. Statistically speaking, you missed the show, so here's who you didn't get to see (and the entire lineup meets our standards of worth seeing):

• Hugh Moore hosted the show and did a bang-up job at being exciting and low-key all at once. The man puts on a good set.
  
• The first comic was the delightful Jen Kirkman and she, in her own words, basically managed to turn what was essentially a "Cathy" strip into something funny. Rarely do comics bring visual aids to show how fat they have gotten, but hey, here it is.
• Famed "Republican senator" and now tea party representative Richard Martin (also known as Paul Gilmartin) showed up, giving us our first in-person glimpse of the character. You may have heard his stints on various radio or podcast programs, and as a one-man act he managed to hold up quite nicely. If you're like us and listen to a lot of podcasts, odds are you'll want to be sure to seek him out just to see what he looks like.
• From New York, Jamie Lee put on a too-short but great set.
• Another too-short set from Greg Behrendt went amazingly well and his tone seemed different from some of his other performances. If you are ever in a position to make a request of him, his dissection of the GQ photo spread was well worth the price of admission.
• Character genius Paul Scheer assembled a one-man show bit combining the boring life of a TSA worker and pretty much every stereotype you might expect from a pretentious one-man show. It was brilliant, the kind of thing you wish you saw more of on television but most likely won't since Human Giant is seemingly on permanent hiatus. With tons of musical and light cues, it went off seemingly perfectly. Genuinely great funny.
• For fans of surprises, the unannounced Patton Oswalt brought in some new (to us) material as well as some dusted-off jokes which he self-consciously delivered. Can you trot out an Avatar joke at the end of your set if it has just been released on iTunes? The answer is yes, and it still works. Other material (for those of you comedy nerds wondering what may or may not make his next album) included a riff on babies pooping themselves and rich people. We dare not spoil it for you but in the off chance you're looking for evidence of great lost Oswalt bits, well, enjoy that last sentence.

So there you have it! Another great week and $5 well spent.