The format is cool. The style is goofy. The subject is annoying. The context is comedy. The outlook is iffy.
So far, three episodes and it's about over. Key & Peele, the comedy duo who are spelunking their way through the top 100 stereotypes about contemporary male tragic mulattoes are about 75% of the way to the end of the tunnel, in the middle of the mountain of race. That's a tiresome mountain. They seem to have the comic spark to do a lot more, but I think they're milking it. In about two episodes, if they keep up this direction they're going to be squarely in Dat Phan territory.
So far, their forte has been code switching jokes which they've managed to put into some fairly hilarious contexts - the evil voice of Obama's Anger, the restaurant complaint, and talking out loud at movies. Their take on the Nazi visitation for Inglorius Basterds was inspired. But it's still a code switching joke. That could work very well in a standup routine, but I need more than that from sketch comedy. So far, outside of the Obama references (their greatest joke of all was him pulling up to a street rap contest) K&P have done no current events topics, which their quirky sense should be able to pull off.
Aside from the difficulty of Comedy Central's insistence on bleeping, which is fking annoying, K&P are not well served here. So we'll see shortly if they can step out of the bucket. The opportunity is stupendous, but they've got to get their characters more deeply situated outside of the jokes. Because, quite frankly, what is the last comic duo you've seen, the Smothers Brothers? Rowan & Martin? Cheech & Chong? It just hasn't been done in decades so the sky's the limit. That is, unless their whole concept of comedy is about breaking through one ceiling.
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