For starters, if you have never seen a Comedy Central roast, there are a few things you should know:
1. They are raunchy. Even with some editing, you may be shocked by what they get away with. I can’t stress this enough: send the kids to bed, these shows are dirty. Even with some censoring, you may be surprised at how much they get away with saying on air.
2. The roasters spend more time attacking eachother than the roastee. Pamela Anderson was probably attacked as much as the Hoff. It’s just the way the roasts work.
3. The roasts are not “mean”. You may feel that some of the jokes go to far. But everyone on stage knew exactly what they were getting into.
4. 90% of the jokes from every roast I’ve seen fall into one of these categories: 1) You sleep with everyone... 2) No one wants to sleep with you... 3) You’re a washed up nobody. If you’ve seen other roasts, many of the jokes may seem old and recycled. They were.
The stage was great. The Hoff sat on a lifeguard chair in front of an enormous animated voice modulator. The thing must have been 10 feet tall. In between roasters and commercial breaks it would light up and bounce up and down. It looked beautiful, and it kills me that they just took it apart after the taping (as far as I know.)
Alex's (n knight) KITT was on stage to the side of the roasters the entire time. And giant projection screens behind them would show some 3D graphics of the Hoff and lots of newly-rendered KITT footage. Knight Rider was well-represented with all of the staging.
Seth MacFarlane served as the Roastmaster. I think you either love him or hate him. He has a certain used-salesman-sleaze look about him, but I for one think he's pretty funny. And he does have a great commanding voice, perfect for the stage. Sue was able to get him to do a KITT impression after the show, which was fantastic.
In general, there weren't many Knight Rider jokes. A few from Jeffrey Ross: "Where are my Knight Rider fans? (loud cheering) What are the odds an alcoholic gets cast in a show about a car that drives itself?" "It takes a special kind of suck to get upstaged by a Pontiac." And OK, I'll give you a dirty one:
PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:
"David Hasselhoff once got so drunk he f---ed KITT in the gashole."
Hulk Hogan said "Nobody will ever take your place.. except maybe that guy from Airwolf." He later ripped off his outer shirt to reveal a "Suck It Hoff" shirt underneath.
Jerry Springer asked "David, have you Pamela ever done it? If you have, just smile." There was a short pause and David talked to his watch saying "KITT, get me out of here!"
Greg Giraldo: "You used to have a car that started when you talked to it, now you have a car that won't start when you blow into it."
Gilbert Gottfried is annoying. He’s made an entire career out of being annoying. But I have to hand it to him, he just keeps pushing and pushing and wearing you down until you just can’t help but laugh. And I believe he was the only one who actually told a “narrative joke”.
It's hard to say who was the most offensive person on stage, although Whitney Cummings is a strong contender. She really went after Pamela Anderson, and she may have pushed too far. At one point Whitney was trying to make a joke about Pamela selling her house to live in a trailer, and Pamela interrupted her a couple times to say she never sold her house. It just seemed like there might have been some awkward tension there.
At the end of the roast, the Hoff took the stage for his “rebuttal”. Here’s the problem: Hasselhoff is a nice guy. So after 10 mostly vulgar insult comics, the Hoff’s jokes seemed tame in comparison and therefore not as funny. Same thing goes for KITT; his jokes didn’t really go anywhere but frankly it didn’t matter... Hearing William Daniels as KITT made everything worthwhile. He could have recited the alphabet and I would have been happy.
Hasselhoff broke into song, singing a few verses of "This Is The Moment" from Jekyll & Hyde. I thought it was a great finish to the show. It's a big, triumphant song that gets people up and cheering, and Hasselhoff does a good job with it. He closed the evening with a "sobering" statement:
"Sometimes life gives you a wake-up call; it's how fast you get up, not how hard you fall."
Is the roast funny? Yes, although most of the time you're laughing more at the shock value than the actual jokes themselves. But for Knight Rider or Hasselhoff fans, it's an absolute must-see.
The show airs August 15th on Comedy Central.
