[ATTENDED: March 16, 2018] Emo Philips
I don’t really know all that much about Emo Phillips. I know that he was kinda popular in the 1980s, but I didn’t know he was still doing stand up–I’ve mostly known him through his association with Weird Al. Emo was in UHF as the shop teacher who (spoiler) cuts his fingers off.
Well, apparently Emo has been plugging away all this time and has remained friendly with Al. So for Al’s Vanity tour, he asked Emo to open. Emo even made a joke about this. He said that during the filming of UHF, he asked Al when the two of them might tour together and Al said (mockingly) “when donald trump is president.”
Emo’s comedy is really dark but–delivered in his bizarre manner that goes somehow beyond deadpan–it makes his jokes really hilarious.
He came out in a long coat and proceeded to take all kinds of things out of his pocket–a banana, papers, another banana, a plastic phone?–and drop them on the stool next to his microphone. He dropped them from high enough that they all bounced off. And he didn’t use any of the props at all.
He opened by asking how many people were there on a date. People raised their hands and he said that that was nice–a nice way to test them.
Some of his jokes were at he expense of his ex-wife–usually a pretty uninspired topic–but his jokes were really funny and twisted. There was this one about a first date:
I went out on a first date, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again.
She got mad when I didn’t open the car door (does that weird mocking dance thing he does)….
I just swam to the surface.
He covers a surprisingly wide range of topics overall–there was a bunch about religion, dating, and his twisted childhood .
I enjoyed the joke that religious people are like civil war reenactors–it’s all in good fun until you take it too seriously.
He jokes about priests and god in general and then this funny thing about Mormons:
A Mormon told me that they don’t drink coffee. I said, “A cup of coffee every day gives you wonderful benefits.” He said, “Like what?” I said, “Well, it keeps you from being Mormon …”
About his childhood: On my 7th birthday, I had a cake and my parents told me to blow out the candles and make a wish. I did and they asked what I wished for. I said I wished that you would stop beating me. They said, aw… you said it out loud.
Turns out a lot of the jokes were old (some very old), but they were all new to me. For a nice collection of his one liners, click here.
But he also did some spontaneous jokes. A woman came in wearing a necklace of glowing green balls. (How this was not staged I have no idea). He teased her about winning things at a casino. I couldn’t tell if she reacted. But I cracked up when he said. Make them go red if you want me to stop….okay then I’ll keep going. The best concluding joke about that: I’m sorry to be making fun of you. You probably came here to get away from that.
He said he’s making his own greeting cards. His birthday card: You’re one year older. Let’s see you find a way to blame that on the Jews. His wedding card was even funnier:
“Now that you are married, may your naked couplings no longer sadden the Lord.”
A bit that got the whole crowd laughing was so silly as to be preposterous–he took off that long great coat and put it in his pocket which was funny enough, but then he managed to slowly tuck the entire thing into his pants. As well as some other props.
He said he enjoyed playing in front of Al’s audiences because they were very smart and smart audiences don’t heckle. They assume a bad comic is their own fault because they didn’t do enough research.
He had me in tears; it was a great opening set.
Leave a Reply