MAN CAVE: Patton Oswalt's Finest Hour?

POSTED: Monday, October 10, 2011, 3:00 PM

Filed Under: Man Cave

Man Cave is a testosterone-laden Monday feature that highlights the weekend haps of a pop culture-loving Philly dude.

I spent the weekend absorbing comedian Patton Oswalt's new CD, Finest Hour. My feelings? It's not necessarily his funniest hour, but it's consistent with his hyper-literal, pop-cultural back catalog. And this time he's added some tales about his misadventures in parenting.

Oswalt — known for portraying the buddy in King of Queens and the voice of Remmy in Ratatouille — extols the virtues of sweatpants, singing alone in the car and Ambien dreams. He still touches on big-picture issues like religion and gay marriage, but unlike some of his previous efforts, he keeps those topics on the sillier side (i.e. a discussion about how Jesus' superpowers would fair in a comic book.)

Patton has definitely improved his word economy, which I personally have mixed feelings about. His jokes may be tighter, but Patton has always been unique in his ability to weave an enjoyably evocative tapestry of verbosity. Therefore, unlike most comics, a bloated word bureaucracy has always helped rather than hurt Patton's act. Now that he's stripped down, the material relies more on the sheer power of his premises, which, while they remain way above the national average, are not the best in his portfolio.

But that's fine with me, because most über-successful comics would face the onset of a family as vacation time. Patton, on the other hand, has incorporated his youngster into his work ethic and, keeping to his album per every two years schedule, achieved a solid CD that's worth plenty of laughs.

(ryan.carey@citypaper.net) (@slackerdiytoday)

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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