Comedians of Comedy: Live at the El Rey

In 2005, Comedy Central had a little documentary series about some alternative comedians on tour. They aired it around 2am on Friday nights with more or less no promotion. The series was called The Comedians of Comedy, and featured Patton Oswalt (King of Queens), Brian Posehn (Just Shoot Me, Mr. Show), Zach Galifianakis (Late World with Zach, Tru Calling), and Maria Bamford (who I know from nothing but stand-up). But don't judge these guys based on their work on some TV shows that are kinda weak. A few people pointed the show out to me and said I might enjoy it, and I'm glad they did. It was an interesting look at life on the road, mixed with funny and often innovative comedy, and I became an instant fan of all four performers.

As I looked around for what else they've done, I discovered that the whole Comedians of Comedy thing was a movie first, at the time only available on Netflix. So I checked it out, and it was also very cool. And more recently, I saw that Netflix had a concert film, Live at the El Rey, which arrived over the weekend.

Zach Galifianakis was absent for this one, no behind the scenes stuff, a mildly amusing Bob Odenkirk cameo at the beginning, and some un-funny guy named Blaine Capatch served as the host. And I've hunted down enough performances of Bamford, Oswalt, and Posehn that I'd heard some of the material before. But it was still very very funny, which is the entire point of comedy, so for me it was a winner.

Just now poking around, while the Comedy Central show doesn't seem to be available, the original Comedians of Comedy film plus Live at the El Rey are available in one DVD set, which I'll probably be picking up at some point.