Stream It Or Skip It?

For his debut solo comedy special, Adam Pally is neither completely solo nor necessarily doing what’s typically considered comedy, as he performs cover songs on a guitar and invites friends and family onstage with him. And it also blends documentary elements as he allows a crew to film his whole day in Brooklyn. He might be married with kids, but this hour has definite divorced dad energy. That’s good for comedy, tho, right?

The Gist: Adam Pally doesn’t have a background in stand-up comedy.

Rather, Pally paid his dues in the trenches of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre as an improviser on a loose, energetic team with Ben Schwartz. Which perhaps best explains their chemistry even as animated characters playing off of each other in the Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise. He is perhaps most beloved, however, for his role in the ABC sitcom, Happy Endings. Pally’s other TV credits have included The Mindy Project, Mr. Throwback, FUBAR, as well as multiple sketches on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

For this project, he’s letting us see a bit more about him as a person, even if he’s also playing with the concept of truth, in this concert performance filmed at The Bell House in Brooklyn, with documentary footage filmed that day spliced in between songs. He has his cousin serving as DJ to set the tone for the audience as they came in, and he is joined onstage by actor David Krumholtz at one point, by his father at another, and backed by a band that also includes comedian Dave Hill.

What gives? As Pally explained in announcing this HBO concert: “The special was made out of a deep desire to make something, anything, anything at all, and I couldn’t be prouder of it and grateful to HBO for giving me an incredible platform to make people laugh, play music, and tell some bubbameisters.”

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: In terms of tone and content, Pally’s performance here most closely resembles the 2020 docu-concert by comedic actor Whitmer Thomas for HBO: The Golden One.

Memorable Jokes: As he zings himself throughout, this special isn’t really about jokes. So the biggest laughs come when Pally pulls down the curtain on his persona or his misdirects. Which means there’s not a lot to say here before you watch it for yourselves.

Although I can probably safely mention that Krumholtz, interviewed outside the venture, clearly enjoyed poking fun at Pally for this endeavor, with lines such as “unbridled passion cannot be bridled,” before undercutting his pal even further by suggesting that this is all about Pally making money off of a tour where all he does is play cover songs.

But that can’t be it, right? Right?!?

Our Take: The self-awareness and insecurity on display from the jump. “I know a lot of you are probably thinking to yourself, like, why? Why would a television star (laughs) be about to play songs at me in Gowanus?” Pally asks. Gowanus being the Brooklyn neighborhood where The Bell House, a hip venue for comedy in the 2010s that has become a Live Nation venue in the past year. Then he answers: “And to that I would say, you know, movie star. And then, I would say, I don’t know. I have no idea.”

That does get a laugh, if even just nervous giggles. After which he adds: “I like to start every one of my shows with a few bummers. Bummer number one is I’m about to, I’m going to put on a guitar.” He even references a bit from Barbie, where Ryan Gosling as Ken forced Barbie to listen to him, but then makes himself the butt of it more by revealing that when he took his daughter to see that movie, she turned and pointed at him, mocking him even more.

There is a method to his musical comedy madness, tho.

Pally’s parents were lounge singers when he was a kid; his dad played piano while his mom sang and bantered with him. And you’ll see the truth in that when Pally senior gets onstage to join in a father-son duo of Carly Simon’s “Coming Around Again.” Of course, the comedian’s choice of songs veers heavily into sentimentality, and again, the only big laughs come after each song when he deflates the sad air hanging in the room.

And when he’s attempting something more rocking than Sarah McLachlan or Bonnie Raitt, he finds humor in the fact that he cannot actually broadcast his covers of Bruce Springsteen or Oasis.

A third of the way into the air, he resets the whole mood for the live audience (and perhaps also for any viewers still stunned by curiosity) by asking and answering what he supposes you’re all thinking. “Is this the show?” he says. “Yeah, this is the show.”

But he is putting all of himself into this show, to the point where he can mock both an entire group of comedians (podcasters of Austin?!), as well as one of his friends, zinging: “Do you think Jake Johnson is working this hard for his podcast?”

It may come across at times as one big vanity project, but you could argue that about any comedy special. For something like this, though, where the laughs don’t come from standard set-ups and punchlines, we’re reminded just how much of an emotional and psychological toll the past five years have taken on performers such as Pally. Between the pandemic shutdown and then the lengthy shutdown by the striking actors’ and writers’ unions, he found himself in a creative rut. He needed to regain his love for performing, and this tour and special gave him the incentive and momentum he needed.

And if his cover songs couldn’t get licensed in time for HBO? “That’s for someone else to figure out,” Pally told his director, Brent Hodge, in a recorded phone conversation. If not? “Then it’s really truly just for the audience.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. In another call with his director, giving him guidance as they began filming, Pally trusts his improvisational instincts. Keep it loose, he urges. “It’s loose, and whatever it is, it is.” Watching this as a double-feature today or this weekend might be just the trick as Hodge also helmed the brand-new Peacock doc, Downey Wrote That, about longtime Saturday Night Live writer Jim Downey.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.