(TV Review) The Comedy Central Roast of James Franco (2013)

I love these Comedy Central Roasts. Usually they have a few duds and a lot of good comics just bashing the crap out of some poor sucker. I recently rewatched the one of Flavor Flav and someone told him that he look like a skelaton wrapped in electical tape...so I can't pass something like that up.

The problem is that in this Roast they only included comedic ACTORS and only one real stand up comedian. The problem with that is that the actors don't have the timing that the stand up comics do. Jeff Ross was the only real comic in the group and even he had a soft set.

Of all of the horrible things in this would, Seth Rogen was the Roastmaster. He, while laughing at all of his own jokes, completely ruined the whole damn thing with that horrible laugh of his. It was bad. Comedians should not laugh at their own jokes. At least not excessively. And especially when your laugh sounds like Seth Rogen's.

It wasn't all bad. There were a few people that stood out and actually did a really good job.

Jonah Hill surprised me. He destroyed Bill Hader and pretty much everyone else on the stage. It was pretty good. The only thing that detracts from his set was the constant laughing at his own jokes. That was a "turn off", but still, out of the actors...he was the best.The only thing that he did that was kind of odd was that the camera and mics kept catching him tell Franco how much he loved him. It wasn't part of his set and I started to wonder just how much he meant it.

Andy Samberg was also REALLY funny. He did something that I have only seen one other person do at a Roast (Norm Macdonald). He took a dive. He told unfunny jokes and I almost caughed a lung up laughing at that idiot. The people that "got it", the same with when Norm did it, got a lot of laughs out of his set. The majority of the crowd did not get it. Their loss.

Natasha Leggero! Oh my God. There are few people that can go up there as an "unknown" (I had only seen her in bit parts on other people's shows but had no clue what her name was) and walk off afterwards looking like and effing boss. She DESTROYED those people. Cut everything to the quick. Maybe others have been more brutal (Anthony Jeselnik telling Charlie Sheen that the only difference between him and Michael Douglas was that people will miss Douglas when he dies from cancer) but in this lightweight group she came across as a freaking heavy weight. It was awesome.

All in all, it wasn't the worst Roast that CC has done, but it wasn't too far from the bottom. Still, those three sets are worth watching it when it has a rerun.



C-