"Come with me and you will see a late night freak show jubilee" - Insomniac theme
The Best of Insomniac with Dave Attell, Volume 1 DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Remember your drunken best friend in college? The one who thought he was the life of the party but was actually about as interesting as an old shoe? Imagine if he really had been funny and the two of you hit the road to check out the late night activities of North American cities. That is Comedy Central's Insomniac with Dave Attell, only better.
After performing at the particular city's comedy club, stand up Dave Attell heads out with his trusty cameraman Brian to ferret out the weird and mundane activities that take place while normal people sleep. He hops from bar to bar, usually getting progressively drunker, but he also visits ordinary folks who happen to have late night jobs. Attell is effortlessly funny. He never seems to look down on the strange people he stumbles upon, no matter how drunk and obnoxious they may be. He simply treats them like long lost friends, albeit long lost friends he can hurl mild insults at.
In this collection, Dave visits New York, Montreal, New Orleans, Houston, and Chicago. In New Orleans, between run-ins with drunken tourists in the Quarter, he meets up with Sheriff Harry Lee and goes Nutria hunting with Sheriff's officers, takes in a stockcar race, and visits the guy who mans the city's water pumping station. (Incidentally, this allows you to hear actual Louisiana dialects rather than the fake Hollywood version normally heard in movies). In New York he goes to a karate school, visits a dog bar and a heavy metal bar, attends a "Goddess Party" for full figured gals, watches the sets for Guiding Light being built, and helps to man a newsstand. The other episodes feature this same oddly pleasing mix of bar hopping and travelogue.
These episodes are uncensored, meaning that there are a few fleeting glimpses of un-blurred nudity and lots of un-bleeped cursing. Frankly, though, sometimes bleeped language makes the show funnier. Dave's visit to a Chicago hotdog stand manned by incredibly profane cooks and cashiers is funny here in its uncensored version, but on television the almost continuous bleeps elevate the scene to surreal comic masterpiece.
The simple menu has a play all feature, or the episodes can be viewed individually. There are no chapter stops.
