Kristen Schaal: Live at the Fillmore

Schaal is certainly an odd character to figure out for the uninitiated. Instead of reading this review or the couple vastly negative reviews you can get a better sense from reading the three critic reviews available at the time of this writing.

I can see how this can be polarizing as "love it or hate it" material. But if you want something other than a humdrum style routine it's worth a shot to decide for yourself. Some of the best bits for me were at the beginning. And in my point of view the climax was too long, drawn out and falls flat.

Kristen Schaal does her first Comedy Central one-hour special at the Fillmore in San Francisco. She's best at doing awkward girl with deliberate misunderstandings and known as a contributor on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The special is awkwardly written and not all together successful. A perfect example is the pot and spoon bit. The basic concept is hilarious but she fails to write an ending for it. The best bit has to be the taint monologue.

She walks off a third of the way in. It begins a long slow slide to the finish with the concept that her show is awkward and not quite working out. It's almost experimental theater in nature. The little girl roasting her and the crickets aren't actually funny. It would be odd enough for nervous laughs in shorter segments but when it's this long, it becomes simply awkward.

I have to agree with jasobres that this is un-funny. Obviously a number of people enjoy her routine, but I've never found shock-schlock to be funny. Constant comments about camel-toes, vaginas and penises do not a comedy act make. There is a natural sense of "this person is funny" that a comedian needs that is simply missing from this act. Her expressions aren't funny, her humor isn't funny; it's like a 1-hour set of the worst of SNL. I know that humor is subjective and everyone has their individual tastes, but this performance didn't elicit even a chuckle within the first 10 minutes (which is as much as I could stomach). I figure if a comic doesn't get a laugh within the first 60 seconds they're off to a bad start. Continued such failure is a bad sign and a waste of viewer time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Kristen Schaal's work as an actress and voice actress from her work on Flight of the Concords, the Daily Show, and Bob's Burgers. But as a stand-up comedian, she falters. The only reason I'm not giving this one star is because the first half of the special was all hit while the rest, after she does a lazy eye joke, fell flat. Not even a cameo by her Bob's Burgers co-star Eugene Mirman could save this. I know a lot of people are defending her and saying she was flopping on purpose a la Andy Kaufman, but at least Kaufman was able to save his set by ending on a dead-on Elvis impression. All Schaal has got is being upstaged by a 7- year-old girl and doing a bit about her absent dancing horse.

I was really kind of bored for a while but then from the time she came back onstage, it was great. (In the first part, I did love her saying "Kyle" repeatedly.)

The kid comic was great. I think Kristin has great material when she steps away from the taint-vagina stuff. That's been done to death by others, but her other material (in the second half) is very unique.

I was really kind of bored for a while but then from the time she came back onstage, it was great. (In the first part, I did love her saying "Kyle" repeatedly.)

The kid comic was great. I think Kristin has great material when she steps away from the taint-vagina stuff. That's been done to death by others, but her other material (in the second half) is very unique.

She's a helluva performer.