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Oswalt Serves Notice

'Alternative' comedian shows his success is well-deserved with new CD of material

Patton Oswalt’s new CD, “Werewolves & Lollipops,” confirms his capability as one of the most original and creative stand-up comedians working today. Really, Oswalt’s success in the marketplace has probably already confirmed that, but this CD is good evidence that he’s there creatively as well.

Oswalt does fall under the category of observational humor, but he has also positioned himself as more than just an entertainer. On the CD, Oswalt gets to discourse at length, rolling out more of his own personality as a sci-fi fan dork and a disenchanted Southerner (well, he’s from Northern Virginia, anyway) who revels in mocking Nascar culture.

Previously, Oswalt served notice he is one to watch with the “No Reason To Complian” DVD (reviewed here in April 2006), and here he taps his own straightforward observational critiques of behavior and pop culture that come out skewed because of the frustrated common sense Oswalt brings to bear.

Take his now infamous crack at KFC menu choices -- calling their “meal bowls” mix of chicken, potatoes and gravy all in one a “failure pile in a sadness bowl,” yearning to actually eat with a knife and fork like a human being with dignity.

And in his sci-fi fandom, Oswalt takes off on wishing the Star Wars prequels never got made in “…At Midnight I Will Kill George Lucas with a Shovel.” Imagining meeting Lucas and being told the first prequel will be about Darth Vader as a little kid, and the second will have Boba Fett as a kid, Oswalt says, “No! I want to see them with the helmet and the light saber, fighting and everything! I don’t care where they came from!”

Driving the point home, Oswalt says “I love Angelina Jolie, but I’m not turned on by a picture of Jon Voight’s ball sac…”

With a burgeoning Hollywood career as the voice talent star of “Ratatouille” and a sought-after comedy script doctor, Oswalt can still bite the hand that is feeding him so well, too. In “…Death Bed,” he mocks his own occasional writer’s block by imagining a screenwriter in the 1970s being perfectly happy to write a terrible horror movie of the same name.

Just like Oswalt won’t settle for writing a crummy movie like “Death Bed,” he doesn’t settle for writing material that isn’t well thought out, and that makes “Werewolves & Lollipops” a must own. His material is looser and more dependent on pop culture that could get dated than that of the master, George Carlin, but he’s certainly got enough wit and intelligence to make it interesting to see where he’ll go on future albums.

  

   

     

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