After months of hype and declining relevance, as well as weeks of non-stop commercials ripe with catch phrases, Comedy Central finally aired the Roast of Charlie Sheen last night. If you’re the type of person who likes to have jokes spoiled for you, then there’s a good chance that you already read one of the hundreds of sites that revealed most of the jokes from the live show last week. But since I like a joke’s entertainment value, I held off from the spoilers and watched the show with a fresh mind.
The roast was pretty standard, in that the usual suspects – Jeffrey Ross, Patrice O’Neal, Anthony Jeselnik – were hilarious, the roast master (Seth MacFarlane) was solid, the sassy female comic (Amy Schumer standing in for Lisa Lampanelli and Whitney Cummings) was hilarious, and the special celebrity guests (Mike Tyson, Steve-O and Kate Walsh) proved that not everyone can be a stand-up comic. But the most important person of the event, Sheen, was a good sport and brought the perfect amount of arrogance and crazy to the table (although I would argue that watching his humble presentation at the Emmys sort of buried the momentum).
It certainly wasn’t the best roast, especially since there is still no replacement for Greg Giraldo (sorry, Jeselnik but we appreciate your effort), but it definitely had its moments (including Schumer’s “too soon” Ryan Dunn joke that Steve-O clearly didn’t appreciate and Steve-O maiming his face with Tyson’s hand). Without further ado, on to the best jokes of the evening…
