‘Last Comic Standing’ review: Meet Rocky LaPorte, Tony Baker, Zainab Johnson, and more

While it is still far too early on this season of “Last Comic Standing” to tell if this is going to be a great season, we at least feel like the direction so far is good. You’ve got a great mix of comics, and bringing in professionals that are somewhat unknown is an interesting / exciting idea. Everyone is funny, and they all have enough of a following to encourage people to tune in.

We’re going to divide this review up into two separate groupings: Comics that we got a lot of on the night, and then comics that only had a few seconds to shine in montages. It’s hard to really compare one group to the other.

Extended sets

8. Kelly Pryce – Keenan Ivory Wayans was right-on with his criticism here, since Kelly’s point of view of who she is kept changing. She has good jokes, but there was little consistently from one thing to the next.

7. Chloe Hilliard – We probably wanted to like her more than we actually did, and that may be the editors fault for giving her a package, and then having her tell jokes that were mostly in the package.

6. DC Benny – A good physical comic, and some pretty good material to back it up. We wish that the “I’m going to cut you good” bit at the end had a little bit of a better payoff than a cheesy line from his wife.

5. Alingon Mitra – Good material, but we felt that the delivery was a little slow-paced. At least the “I’m gay” bit at the end was a very funny, original twist.

4. Randy Liedtke – We really liked Randy. He was completely odd and put a lot of effort into this “stand up for me” persona, but he was funny and self-deprecating.

3. Zainab Johnson – Very, very funny. We didn’t find out a whole lot about her background, but she was clever and different than anyone else on the night.

2. Rocky LaPorte – The last comedian of the night, and one of the best. He was almost a little too seasoned in that he was slow with his delivery, but it was mostly worth it.

1. Tony Baker – Great material. His routine on Monopoly was so original that we would’ve been okay with getting another hour worth of this.

Of this group, the ones who advanced were Zainab, Chloe, Alingon, DC, and Rocky. Yep, so our personal favorite did not advance.

Tiny sets

8. Jim Tews – The setup for his joke was a little long, but we laughed.

7. Vinnie Brand – Sort-of funny, but there wasn’t enough about him to know.

6. Keith Albertstadt – Not enough here to really go on, but reasonably funny.

5. Kimberly Clark – We only had one joke in here from Kimberly, but it was funny.

4. Mike Lawrence – Seriously, Mike is on this show? He didn’t get much screen time, but he is the comic that we know the most about and really like away from this show. We may be over-ranking Mike here, based mostly on how we love his comedy outside of the show.

3. Hampton Yount -The one bit we saw from him about women and guys’ varying philosophy on dates.

2. Gerald Kelly – We wish we had more of him, because the few jokes that he did tell were genuinely funny and different.

1. Emily Galati – Funny, surprising jokes about Arizona. Still, these tiny segments don’t do enough to formulate an opinion on the act.

Of this group, Emily and Gerald both advanced, which makes us feel at least a little better than the ones we enjoyed the most went through.

How did you feel about this episode overall? Share your thoughts in the comments, and head over here if you want to get some more TV updates worth a laugh or two (at least sometimes) via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: NBC