Penny for Your ‘Thoughts’

Since Comedy Central’s probably going to put Daniel Tosh’s “Happy Thoughts” stand-up special into heavy rotation for a while, and even started selling it on DVD a few days after it ran, turning it into an album might come across as overkill. Throw in the fact that the market for CDs isn’t doing well, and the thought of people picking up a copy seems like a long shot. Then again, maybe Comedy Central isn’t as dumb as it looks – everybody had Eddie Murphy’s “Comedian” album in the ‘80s, although the “Delirious” special that led to it was almost as big a hit in video stores as it was on HBO. It holds up better than “Party All the Time,” too.

Of course, Murphy was on the cusp of worldwide stardom, something Tosh seems to be readying himself for here. He does, after all, get a few laughs talking about the success of his Web-roundup show “Tosh.0,” where there’s just enough of a format to save the whole thing from anarchy. It’s a trick that also works in his stand-up, and he’s intelligent enough to get away with upping the ante by joking about everything from sexism to global warming to decapitation. What’s more is that he has faith in his audience’s ability to know his musings are too bizarre and nasty to be anything but mere jokes.

He clearly gets a kick out of riffing on bad taste, which doesn’t necessarily mean he resorts to it. He’s more interested in the element of surprise, something that lends a kind of boldness to material about what cavorting with loose women can do for one’s relationship with his girlfriend, and what a charity he’s got going has to do with Febreze. Even when he does social commentary to keep up with all the other comedians out there, he deals with stuff like illegal immigration in a way that retools it as a package for his own style. A biter like Carlos Mencia can learn a lot from him.

It’s a safe bet that Tosh can depend on the fan base he’s built with “Tosh.0” to tune in for “Happy Thoughts,” and that the same group of people will make up most of the CD and DVD sales. There’s plenty here to win over the Tosh agnostic, though, and while he seems to love doing stand-up, its ulterior motive of opening audiences up to checking out his TV show definitely sweetens the pot. He’s still doing that “Viewer Video of the Week” thing, by the way.

This article was originally published on AllMediaNY.com

Photo by Laura Harward