Hartford
Old Jokes Are Still Funny
by | Mar 28, 2024 11:18 am
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D.L. Hughley
D.L. Hughley
The Funny Bone Comedy Club
Manchester
March 24, 2024
The first standup that I remember seeing was in The Kings of Comedy movie. My idea of professional comedy was shaped by the four Black men on stage with immaculate suits, crisp shape-ups and the best jokes of the era. One of the best performances of that movie came from D.L. Hughley, who came to Connecticut this past weekend.
This was my first chance to see one of the Kings of Comedy in person, and in a much more intimate setting than the mega arenas that they typically sell out. The Funny Bone in Manchester was a great venue to get up close and personal with someone whose comedy I’ve admired for over 20 years.
The first performer of the evening was a man named Barry Ribs. I was honestly surprised to see an older white man opening for Hughley, but Rib has been opening for him for seven years. Ribs was less of a comedian himself and more of a hype man, getting the crowd ready for the rest of the show.
“Without my glasses I look like the scientist from Back to the Future,” he said, and he was right. Ribs’ comedy proposition was the juxtaposition of his use of slang against his dumpy white guy look. It got a few laughs, and was mostly successful in warming us up.
The next comedian was Bo Last Name Dacious, another longtime collaborator of Hughley. Bo was laugh-out-loud funny, enumerating on how aging has changed his outlook on life and of course, his sex life. Bo was able to put a fresh spin on his observations about Black culture by poking fun at the fact that we often use phrases that we all know the meaning of, but none of us actually know the meaning of. He described how we talk about drug use, for instance: “He’s on that shit again. But what is ‘that shit’? Who knows?” he said to raucous laughter. Equally hilarious was his “soapy rag” bit. If you know, you know, and if you don’t — well, you might want to work on your sex game.
Bo Last Name Dacious
Finally, the moment I’d been waiting for. D.L. Hughley came to the stage and immediately went into a rapid-fire series of jokes and observations that had the audience doubled over. Hughley used his voice and amusement to lead the audience where he wanted them to go.
One thing I’ve learned watching standup is that if a comedian isn’t laughing at their own jokes, that’s a very bad sign. Hughley laughed often, and it helped to make the material even funnier.
One of his funnier moments came when he was discussing his daughter’s wedding. He started by discussing the day she came out to him:
“Dad, I have something to tell you, but you might not love me anymore.”
“Baby, there’s nothing you can tell me that would make me love you any less.”
“OK, I’m gay.”
Hughley sighed in exaggerated relief.
“That’s it? I was afraid you were gonna tell me you were pregnant!”
He continued talking about his daughter, poking lighthearted fun at her. He recalled the wedding day for the audience as well.
“I had two questions for them. First, which side was for the bride and which side was for the groom? Speaking of which, did y’all both have to buy $8,000 wedding dresses? Couldn’t one of y’all have rented a tux?”
Hughley took aim at the rest of his family with the same love and humor.
My one complaint about Hughley’s set was that it felt a bit dated. He made some oblique references to Boeing’s continued woes and some other present day events, but the set focused pretty heavily on the events of the past 3 – 4 years: the pandemic and quarantine, January 6th, the end of Roe v. Wade.
He compared watching the January 6th insurrection to how White people react to riots in Black communities.
“I get it now when they shake their heads, because I was sitting there watching them smash up Congress like, ‘In their own neighborhood?” he said to raucous laughter.
“I saw a few White people climbing up those walls. They better not ever call us monkeys again.”
Don’t get me wrong: It’s impossible to do a comedic set without talking about how we all spent a year trapped inside our homes, or a bumbling attempt to overthrow the federal government. And the jokes were still very funny, despite their apparent age.
But I was hoping for more about today’s world. He completely glossed over the Kat Williams interview, which took aim at two of his fellow kings of comedy, mentioning it at the top of the show and then never again. There was nothing about the war in the Middle East or Russia, nor about the current presidential election. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not like I heard Hughley’s old jokes before. But I was very much looking forward to hearing his thoughts on the current state of the world.
NEXT
The Hartford Funny Bone hosts Corey Holcomb beginning on March 29.
Jamil goes to the Hartford Public Library for some jazz.
