The Best of Comedy Central Presents Uncensored
Starring Lewis Black, Dane Cook, Jeff Dunham, Jim Gaffigan, Mitch Hedberg, Demtri Martin, Carlos Mencia, Brian Regan
Paramount Home Video
Available Feb. 5, 2008

With humor being so subjective, it’s hard to find a comic who can appeal to any audience. Regardless of your taste in stand-up though, there should be at least one comic in the line-up of The Best of Comedy Central Presents Uncensored that you won’t find funny.

The three-plus hours of stand-up features eight big names in comedy today packing plenty of laughs into one disc. Even though there are plenty of jokes, many of them would be considered “old” now that most of the featured comics have moved on to bigger productions.

The eight stars of the show are Lewis Black, Dane Cook, Jeff Dunham, Jim Gaffigan, Mitch Hedberg, Demtri Martin, Carlos Mencia, and Brian Regan. With the exception of Hedberg, who began to garner a massive cult following before his untimely death, all of the comics now tour with much larger crowds, have their own HBO specials, star in movies, TV shows, or a combination thereof since the time they were featured in Comedy Central Presents.

Some, who were relatively unknown at the time these specials were filmed, seem a bit rough around the edges, particularly Cook, Dunham, Gaffigan and Hedberg. It’s interesting to see names like these before they were huge to see the early stages of their act before it contained some of their refined trademarks. Nevertheless, they all earned their own specials for a reason and are great to watch.

Say what you will about Cook, I still find the guy funny, and his act on this DVD is one from long before the world’s largest Internet hate campaign branded him a joke-stealing hack. His particular routine is over five years old and I still laugh at parts of it. Heck, even Carlos Mencia manages to be somewhat funny before he got his own show and his ego exploded.

The “uncensored” aspect is hardly worth highlighting, with barely any profanity mixed into the acts and what little there is nothing extreme.

The disc is mostly lacking special features as well, only having a few very short segments from other shows on the network which really only serve to remind us how funny Stephen Colbert is and Sarah Silverman isn’t.

What that leaves you with, however, is still worth the cover price. Even if you find a few of the comics involved intolerable, you’re sure to find several that will make you LOL.