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Now Playing: David Cross: Let America Laugh (Lance Bangs, 2003)
I don't subscribe to HBO, so I'm a little behind the curve on their excellent series The Sopranos, The Wire, and Six Feet Under -- I prefer to view the episodes at my own pace on DVD anyway. However, I was so behind the curve on Mr. Show, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross' long-running late-night sketch comedy vehicle, that it wasn't until I recently caught a watered-down version of an episode on TBS that I felt compelled to seek out the series in uncut form. It doesn't disappoint; the team's deadpan-crude-surrealistic brand of humor jibes perfectly with my comedic predilections. The seamless transitions between sketches and self-referential jokes raise Mr. Show to an almost postmodern level of meta-humor. To call it the bastard progeny of Monty Python's Flying Circus and early Saturday Night Live is, I think, not too far off the mark.

Despite my hunger for all things Mr. Show, I was a little hesitant to watch Let America Laugh, a documentary of Cross' post-Mr. Show standup tour. Standup comedy is rarely my cup of tea, at least since Eddie Murphy shocked and delighted my pre-teen ears with his obscene rants on Delirious. Fortunately, this is a standup film for the standup-averse, focusing mostly on Cross' interactions with his audience onstage and off. It ends up being a chronicle of the funny, annoying, idiotic, and just plain weird people one meets when your job consists of entertaining the public. As I've played in bands since I was fourteen, I have some experience with these folks (sometime I'll relate the saga of the guy who jumped onstage with us to serenade his girlfriend with an interminable rendition of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Constipation Blues"). When you perform publicly, there will always be a segment of your audience egotistical-or drunk-enough to want to be the focus of everyone's attention. During the performance, you can fend off these affronts; however, the true weirdos will corner you backstage, at the bar, outside the club-basically anytime you just want to relax, have a beer, and basically get away from the pressure of being "on." What's amazing to me is that Cross doesn't seem to hide from these encounters; he seeks them out and uses them as sources of material.

Let America Laugh chronicles such indignities as obnoxious drunk hecklers, groupie wannabes, a thoroughly bizarre "reporter" whose interview consists entirely of a litany of facts culled from his extensive magazine archives, and--I kid you not--a farting hippie. A Nashville club owner refuses to move tables off the floor during a sold-out show for fear of not selling enough food actually tries to kick Cross out when his obstinacy is understandably turned into material for Cross' routine. An invitation to an "after-hours party" at a small town video store turns into a nightmarish session of stoned headbanger kids pontificating endlessly on existential quandaries. It's all grist for the comedy mill, and it's all pretty hilarious. Cross soldiers bravely onward, never seeming too flustered by what's going on. That's not to say he's passive; he mines the humor out of each situation, often with a wink to the hand-held camera. Onstage, he can be particularly withering, as we see when he turns on a drunken heckler who makes an unfortunate comment about the World Trade Center. Cross calls him to the stage, then grills him mercilessly on why he thought it would be funny to make the remark. "I wasn't prepared for that," the abashed fellow mutters sheepishly.

Often, director Lance Bangs just lets the people do the work for him, knowing that a camera is a magnet for drunks and other freaks. There are times when this crosses the border into mean-spiritedness, but it's fairly tightly edited, so there aren't too many of those moments where you're cringing for the poor idiots on camera (let's not forget each of these people gave permission to be shown in the film). Occasionally, the film shows that the impulse to mean-spiritedness is the correct one. In one scene, there's a long tipsy rant by a young woman about the virtues of independent artists and venues. "Jeez," I thought, "this girl's a little airheaded and drunk, but her head's in the right place." The payoff comes later in the film when the champion of indie art identifies herself as an employee of concert megacorp Clear Channel.

Humor's a tricky thing, and your results may vary. Mr. Show fans may be disappointed by the dearth of stand-up material. The movie is framed by an unnecessary (and not terribly funny) skit in which Cross, ostensibly a white-collar employee at a New York advertising firm, is "outed" as a stand-up comedian. However, Let America Laugh (the title comes from the stream-of-counsciousness rantings of the verbose Clear Channel woman) is thoroughly enjoyable as a document of life on a shoestring-budget tour, where one really does meet the most interesting folks, and as a cautionary tale for anyone considering taking their standup act on the road. Sound and picture are a bit uneven, as is to be expected from a film shot largely on hand-held camcorder and released straight to video. Extras are fairly limited; four extra scenes are included, as is a feature called "Deleted Scenes," which consists of several brief scenes strung together without separate menu headings.