STAND-UP TUESDAYS: Chelsea Peretti

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny. This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Chelsea Peretti’s comedy career. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

It’s been a spell since I’ve done a Stand-Up Tuesdays, but unfortunately, that’s what illness does to you. Thankfully, Netflix had me covered as I recuperated, keeping me entertained with comedian Chelsea Peretti’s new special, One of the Greats.

Peretti is a comedian an actor whose star is on the rise – and fast. With a starring role in the hit Fox sitcom, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and appearances on Louie, The Sarah Silverman Program, TruTV Presents: World’s Dumbest…, and Tosh.0, Peretti has been entertaining audiences for quite some time. Her snarky, brutally honest observations about the world around her, for a long time, created an image in my mind of almost a mean girl – albeit, a really funny mean girl. I enjoyed her comedy, but I was stuck on whether or not I enjoyed her. But that was soon to change.

Enter Peretti’s first special, One of the Greats, which is available on Netflix, and that whole presumption just flies out the window. For perhaps the first time, we get to peer inside the mind of Chelsea Peretti. Now, most comedic specials offer some level of insight into the performer, but Peretti takes it up about sixteen notches – with hilarious audience plants (including some dogs, a baby, and several immigrants) and brilliantly staged conversations with her inner psyche (aptly dressed as a clown backstage), her audience is able to see that Peretti is, in fact, as vulnerable as the rest of us are. She’s prone to social anxiety, and hilariously highlights some of the more uncomfortable situations we face in daily life. She’s not a mean girl at all, when it comes right down to it – even when she’s uncomfortable making small talk with you.

“If I’m making a new friend, I just want to already be best friends,” Peretti laments. “I don’t want to have to trot through all the getting-to-know-you questions.”

Peretti adds so many delightful little treats to her special, including her audience almost violently throwing flowers and gifts on stage and an audience member having to be dragged out after trying to rush the stage. The special’s opening alone is enough to draw you in, as Peretti dramatically pulls up on a motorcycle and offers a voice-over monologue about her career. It’s definitely one of the most creative introductions I’ve seen in a special.

One of the highlights of One of the Greats, for me, is an hilarious imagined text-message conversation between Peretti and her dog, in which he offers some advice for those uncomfortable social situations.

“Try to go outside, it’s so fucking cool out there! Like, even if you can just look out a window for a second, I promise you, there is shit that you can see that no one else can see, Chelsea.”

If you’re not a Netflix subscriber, what on earth are you waiting for? Its library of comedy specials is expanding constantly, and it’s the only place where you can check out Chelsea Peretti’s One of the Greats, which is quickly becoming one of my personal favorites.

GRADE: A

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