The biggest challenge in reviewing Lisa Lampanelli's Calgary debut this past October 23rd at the Jack Singer, was that most of what she said isn't suitable for print, even in a fairly liberal magazine like this one. I have to admit, there were a few times I almost felt guilty for laughing, when my jaw wasn't on the floor.
Comedy's “Loveable Queen of Mean” is well known for her participation in the Comedy Central Roasts. If you've seen them, you know what to expect. Hopefully everyone who attended knew what they were getting into.
Early in the show she brought a handsome 19 year old named Scott on stage to take a quiz. She asks, “Which nationality is the laziest?” Scott replied, “blacks?” She chastised and corrected him, “No! The Hispanics. Question number 2. Which nationality is the smelliest?” After a long pause, Scott replied “East Indians” which was correct according to Lampanelli. “Which group takes it in the ass?” she asked while pushing the microphone towards his mouth and back like a penis. “The gays,” Scott replied.
“I do a lot of work with the retarded,” she said after he left the stage. “Seriously, I love retards. When they e-mail me I always give them tickets to my show, despite the spelling and grammatical errors...you're welcome Scott.”
“I want to make a movie where Kirstie Alley is a serial killer who murders anyone who has lost 50 lbs and kept it off with Jenny Craig. At the end she would smother Valerie Bertinelli with her gunt,” she joked, explaining to a 78 year old man in the first few rows what a “gunt” was.
A gay couple, Eric and Brian, in the second row was an early target. “You guys are so cute together! You've been together five years? Where did you meet, at the hair salon you work at?” The answer was, amusingly, yes. There were many gay jokes throughout the night, which had the many, many gays in the audience howling with laughter.
“My friend Gay Taylor told me that he licks ass. It tastes like licking a penny.”
Another long-running joke was about her new husband Jimmy Cannizzaro who she married on October 2nd, 2010. The first shocker, the long time lover of black men married a white guy; the second, the amount of jokes about his testicles.
“Jimmy Big-Balls, his sack is huge. We can't do it doggy style because the way those things swing, I don't need a bruised bush.”
The “C” word was thrown around liberally along with every offensive term you could think of – I lost track of the gay slangs after “Rectal Rangers” and “Hershey Highway Patrol.” Yes, her sense of humor is shocking, but somehow with her it isn't as offensive as it should be. This is likely because behind the insults is actually a really nice person, and you don't feel the anger or disgust when some of these words are directed at you by others. At the end of the show, she thanked each of the folks she made fun of and had the audience applaud them for being good sports.
Lisa Lampanelli shouldn't be enjoyable. She certainly isn't going to be for everyone, but the capacity crowd seemed to love every minute, even if many of the jokes resulted in gasps of shock and groans, as much as laughter.