5 Things I Like About Jenny Slate’s Comedy Special “Seasoned Professional”

I really like stand-up comedy, and I’m happy that many breweries around us, including Ratio Beerworks, have adopted it as a regular event. Every Wednesday there are local and touring comedians getting up in front of a crowd and trying out material, looking to share what they have to say and hoping to make us laugh. I enjoy watching that process—I think that every comedian has at least one good joke, and the editor in me gets a bit of a workout thinking of wordsmithing and structure and pace. For Kelly, the empath in her often has a tougher experience, as she sometimes feels more pain on behalf of people who aren’t getting laughs than enjoyment at their set.

Usually this effect is lessened when we’re talking about professional comedians, but I actually think that Jenny Slate’s new Amazon Prime comedy special Seasoned Professional finds a really nice balance between the feeling of someone standing in front of you and putting themselves fully on display, and the collective expectation that we’re also here to laugh.

Here are 5 reasons I liked the special:

1. The title

This special is a follow-up to “Stage Fright”, and I think the slightly serious / slightly tongue-in-cheek “Seasoned Professional” suggests the progression from that first special while also nailing the intersection of confidence and imposter syndrome on display in this new material.

2. Jenny Slate is good at lots of types of comedy

This article from The New Republic by Phillip Maciak does a good job describing the form of this special: “Here, the voices jump out of nowhere. They emphasize a point, they modulate a joke by surprise. Sometimes, she’ll cycle between three or four different voices in the course of a single sentence. The instability, it seems, is the point.”

This excerpt is mostly referring to the literal voices that Jenny uses, but I think the sentiment applies more broadly because there are a lot of stand-up comedy techniques and genres on display in this special, and watching Jenny command them and employ them in different ways is exhilarating. For example, being competent at both observational and physical comedy is one level, but being able to choose between them at the exact right time is the next level, and I think Jenny hits that next level here.

3. Specifically, the voices and impressions she does really stand out

It’s not just that Jenny does good voice impressions, it’s that her entire physical presence and demeanor change suddenly to accompany those voices. Her mom, her psyche, random characters who pop in and out—she’s in control of all these different personas, using them in conjunction to play with dynamics of volume, tone, and rhythm within the narrative. You’ll recognize the effect I’m describing immediately if I say, “You know, like Robin Williams.” Jenny has her own version of that frenetic style, and I like it.

4. Also, she has great command over her physical comedy

At one point in the special Jenny notes her lack of athletic ability, but if you imagine a different world where the goal of sports was to use your physical talents for the sake of humor, then things might be a little different. From her “dressage” at the beginning of the show to an unexpected interaction with the microphone stand, Jenny is able to mine these moments without necessarily needing to make a joke.

5. “That really hurt my feelings”

I’ll spare you the pain of reading me describe a comedy bit, but this part of the show was funny and honest and great. While reading up on the special I found a Vogue interview where Jenny talks about how the story she tells in this specific bit intersects with some of what she’s working on more broadly in her life, and I really identify with what she says: “I’ve come to the point where I have tried so hard to make other people feel comfortable. Usually it’s because I want to, but sometimes it was because I was scared, and in those times, I wish I hadn’t done it. So I give myself room now to talk about things that made me feel uncomfortable, especially when I wasn’t the one who created the situation. I think that’s something that I’m really trying to unlearn: picking up the burden. It’s just not my job anymore.” It’s nice to learn things and move on and try to improve, but it’s also nice to get a little catharsis as you do it. Watching Jenny get her catharsis let me tap into it a little bit too.

Want to hit up Ratio Beerworks free Comedy Show some Wednesday night? Let me know!