The Irreverent Comedian's Life Utilizing a vast archive including never-before-seen personal materials and featuring O'Neal's family and friends.The Irreverent Comedian's Life Utilizing a vast archive including never-before-seen personal materials and featuring O'Neal's family and friends.The Irreverent Comedian's Life Utilizing a vast archive including never-before-seen personal materials and featuring O'Neal's family and friends.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaA voice-over actor was hired so that the viewing audience would be able to understand what was said by comedian Rich Vos.
Featured review
A satisfying honest documentary about Patrice O'Neal
Patrice O'Neal: Killing is Easy, the new documentary produced by Comedy Central, explores the life story of the late comedian from his early life, breaking into the Boston comedy scene and career. The documentary fills in those missing gaps of who he was through interviews from fellow comics and his family.
Patrice O'Neal was a standup comedian that I stumbled upon binging comedian clips on YouTube. He was considered one of the funniest comedians amongst comedians despite being unknown in the mainstream. Anybody familiar with Patrice O'Neal understands that he was an entertainer who left a lot to be desired.
The fact is, there's not a lot of Patrice content out there. Patrice has a total of 4 comedy albums, 1 was a filmed special and the other 3 were released posthumously, which you can binge through in an afternoon.
His comedic brilliance was on full-on display during his guest appearances on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and the Opie and Anthony show, delivering unfiltered loud-mouthed life philosophies on race and gender topics mixed with the savage roasting of anybody in disagreement or just plain near him. One of the funniest things I remember Patrice doing on Tough Crowd was propping up Kevin Hart on his lap and working him like a ventriloquist dummy to make fun of his height. That said, all this content is currently in the form of low-res clips scattered across Youtube and his funniest antics are only available as anecdotes told by comedians on podcasts.
In the most touching and endearing way to salute their departed friend, Bill Burr, Jim Norton, Rich Vos, Robert Kelly and Keith Robinson recreate the original comedian's table at the back of the Comedy Cellar where they sit together and share stories of Patrice O'Neal, which would be visualized as animated shorts. This famed comedian's table is where Patrice O'Neal roasted every comedian hanging out after their sets, which all the comedians unanimously credit his relentless roasting for toughening them up and making each other better comedians.
The documentary showcases his brilliance as a performer who arrived fully formed with a magnetic stage persona and quick fire comedic talent, something a comedian usually takes years to find and mold. Similar to Andy Kauffman, Patrice never saw himself as a straight-up comedian who aimed to get laughs, but as a philosophizing truth speaker who wanted to cut straight to the truth. In his words, his ideal audience would be 50% laughing, 50% groaning.
A testament to how much of a truth speaker Patrice O'Neal was in the doc is when the comedians talk about his flaws and how his straight talking nature hurt his career. Then it cuts to a clip of Patrice directly addressing his own problems to the audience in his act years ago. That struck and stayed with me.
I'd recommend this documentary to Patrice O'Neal fans and comedy fans. I easily could have watched an entire season of a show based on standup comedians sitting at the comedian's table telling funny stories. What was shared about his personal life through his family and girlfriend was endearing too.
It left even more to be desired.
Patrice O'Neal was a standup comedian that I stumbled upon binging comedian clips on YouTube. He was considered one of the funniest comedians amongst comedians despite being unknown in the mainstream. Anybody familiar with Patrice O'Neal understands that he was an entertainer who left a lot to be desired.
The fact is, there's not a lot of Patrice content out there. Patrice has a total of 4 comedy albums, 1 was a filmed special and the other 3 were released posthumously, which you can binge through in an afternoon.
His comedic brilliance was on full-on display during his guest appearances on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and the Opie and Anthony show, delivering unfiltered loud-mouthed life philosophies on race and gender topics mixed with the savage roasting of anybody in disagreement or just plain near him. One of the funniest things I remember Patrice doing on Tough Crowd was propping up Kevin Hart on his lap and working him like a ventriloquist dummy to make fun of his height. That said, all this content is currently in the form of low-res clips scattered across Youtube and his funniest antics are only available as anecdotes told by comedians on podcasts.
In the most touching and endearing way to salute their departed friend, Bill Burr, Jim Norton, Rich Vos, Robert Kelly and Keith Robinson recreate the original comedian's table at the back of the Comedy Cellar where they sit together and share stories of Patrice O'Neal, which would be visualized as animated shorts. This famed comedian's table is where Patrice O'Neal roasted every comedian hanging out after their sets, which all the comedians unanimously credit his relentless roasting for toughening them up and making each other better comedians.
The documentary showcases his brilliance as a performer who arrived fully formed with a magnetic stage persona and quick fire comedic talent, something a comedian usually takes years to find and mold. Similar to Andy Kauffman, Patrice never saw himself as a straight-up comedian who aimed to get laughs, but as a philosophizing truth speaker who wanted to cut straight to the truth. In his words, his ideal audience would be 50% laughing, 50% groaning.
A testament to how much of a truth speaker Patrice O'Neal was in the doc is when the comedians talk about his flaws and how his straight talking nature hurt his career. Then it cuts to a clip of Patrice directly addressing his own problems to the audience in his act years ago. That struck and stayed with me.
I'd recommend this documentary to Patrice O'Neal fans and comedy fans. I easily could have watched an entire season of a show based on standup comedians sitting at the comedian's table telling funny stories. What was shared about his personal life through his family and girlfriend was endearing too.
It left even more to be desired.
helpful•21
- ObsessiveCinemaDisorder
- May 19, 2021
Details
- Runtime1 hour 31 minutes
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