I thought it was pretty “enh” the whole way through. Leary’s rebuttle was borderline pathetic. The one part that did get me was Gilbert Godfried as the dog (with the drummer). He was comparing Leary physically to a roster of people and ended with “you look like Sting with AIDS”. Completely not PC but I didn’t see it coming and thought it was atrociously funny.
I think it was Ross who, during Hugh Hefner’s roast, said, “We were gonna get Larry Flynt, but nobody wanted to build a ramp.”
One of my all-time favorite lines during these roasts.
I thought the Leary one was okay. The priest was my favorite - “A priest, a rapist, and a pedophile walk into a bar… and that was just the first guy.”
I saw the commercail for it and, of course, missed it. I’ll catch it on a rerun. I’ve always liked Denis Leary. I’m sure I’d laugh at this show.
Of the roasts I’ve seen, all have been OK, except for Chevy Chase’s. No one there seemed to like anyone else. All the digs were mean and honest, IMO, and Chevy seemed to be a smug arrogant asshole.
My favorite, though, was when Richard Belzer (I think) made Rob Reiner read Roger Ebert’s review or “North”, which starts “I hate hate hate hate hate hate this movie”, give or take a “hates”.
I suppose none of the roasters were brave enough to point out that Leary is a watered-down imitator of Bill Hicks?
IIRC, Leary hand-picked the roasters.
The show mostly sucked. The more I see Leary, the more I think HE sucks.
Isn’t picking your roasters about as lame as giving yourself a nickname? Considering he’s the meal ticket for people like Adam Ferrara, Lenny Clarke, and Colin Quinn (to a degree); it’s no wonder they pulled their punches. And how exactly does Jim Breuer still see anything? If his eyelids get any squintier due to all his pot smoking they’ll have to declare him legally blind.
About the only time I like Jeffrey Ross is at the Roasts, my favorite line of his:
(Looking around at the aged members of the Friars)
I’ve seen younger faces on cash!
The Chevy roast was so-so, just because people were so mean and Chevy has such a reputation of being so hated by so many people. To me the worst was the Hugh Hefner roast just because everybody kept repeating the same tired variations on “you’re an old fart who screws young blondes because you’re famous”, “I masturbated to your magazine a lot”, and “you’re a senile old fool who doesn’t know what’s going on”.
Whoohoo! Back from the blackout of '03, and this is the first thread I post to. My very own.
Yeah, I did notice that, for a bunch of guys doing their best to come off as assholes, they were surprisingly touchy-feely, and so forth. I saw part of the Hugh Hefner Roast, and it seemed more mean spirited than this one. So much hugging…
That was what I liked about them. To each his own, I guess.
Actually, the problem with some of the roasts, like Chase and Hefner, was that they didn’t have anything current to do. Chevy’s career is completely dead, which was the source of some good jokes, but it’s only so funny when everybody knows it for a fact and there’s nothing else to kid about. At the Dean Martin roasts, they got people like Muhammad Ali, who were famous at the time of the roast.
As such, I think the idea Leary had - to pick roasters who knew each other - wasn’t a bad one. Some of them just weren’t that funny. Colin Quinn kinda nailed it when he said “I’m the fourth-biggest star here, does that bother you? It should.” The guy just isn’t funny. Pick the best comedians and work from there!
I thought Kiefer Sutherland didn’t look too interested. There were a few jokes at his expense early, and his reply seemed to be “Heh.”
Christopher Walken’s bit was interesting. On the Daily Show, Denis said that he wasn’t trying to be funny, just sincere - but that he’s so goddamn weird that it was pretty funny.
Jeffery Ross is always the highlight of those roasts, which is amazing considering nobody knows who the hell he is. However, the funniest thing I can think of from one of the Friars Club Roasts is Gilbert Gottfried at the Hefner Roast. Ice T had been up earlier (even HE didn’t know why, and said so) and did some decent stuff about “I’m gonna rob all you white guys, then fuck all you white bitches…” and then Gottfried came up a while later and said “I can’t believe Ice T stole my bit!” And then he proceeded to do the entire thing again, only it was much funnier.
Lame.
Blind leading the lame.
Blind leading the bling.
Bling leading the halt.
Halt. Please halt.
Please.
Pretty please?
I didn’t even know about. If only they had run ads for it every ten seconds or so I might have caught one…
Actually I thought it was pretty funny. I’m glad they ditched the whole Friars Club thing. It seems there are too many “comedians” who don’t do anything funny at all except Friar’s Club roasts (Ross, King, etc). It’s kind of pathetic.
I thought it was pretty weak, except for the priest. "They sent me a letter saying they hadn’t received my final payment. I wrote back, ‘Yes, you have.’ "
Agreed.
Mr. Reiner was forced to read from Roger Ebert’s review of that disaster of a film, “North”
"I hated this movie.
Hated hated hated hated hated this movie.
Hated it.
Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it.
Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it.
Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it. "
Now that’s a good roast.
Gotta agree that the Jerry Stiller roast, with the line about Bea Arthur’s dick and Ben Stiller taunting his dad (who hates profanity!)by saying “cock” was the best. The rest were OK in spots. But I still whip out the Jerry Stiller tape from time to time when I need a good raunchy laugh.