These Are Jokes
Demetri Martin
Comedy Central
Three-and-a-half out of five stars
Most people would agree that they’ve never heard of Demetri Martin, but he’s no newcomer to the world of comedy. In fact, he appears regularly on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart as a pop culture reporter, and he has worked as a writer and performer for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” From the looks of things, it appears he’s just getting started.
Martin ups the ante with his new CD/DVD release, These Are Jokes, which unapologetically delivers a wacky and sensitive comedic style. These Are Jokes relies heavily on quirky one-liners and Martin’s personal take on life’s idiosyncrasies. This is nice because it offers the listener a whole gamut of topics to be discussed-from amputees to checkers to butter and just about anything else.
Martin’s delivery can get a little too repetitive, but he mixes it up by playing music and having friends contribute to his act.
The replay value for comedic albums for me is generally low, and this one hovers around somewhere in the middle-it’s hard to enjoy one-liners when one already knows the punch line.
Nevertheless, Martin seems to be a veritable Renaissance man, as the DVD contains not only his music but also a stand-up performance with different material from that of the CD (that is as rare as it is sweet, although there is some overlap) and also cartoons that he animated himself.
