In his sixth stand-up special, and third for Netflix, Tom Papa might be 50-something but he’s reveling in his new middle-age status as a dad with no kids in the house. It’s certainly made him happier, but how has it changed his observational comedy?
The Gist: Papa might not be a household name in comedy, but he’s certainly become a fixture in more and more households over the past decade.
Whether it’s through his Netflix specials, or his Netflix Is A Joke SiriusXM talk show he co-hosts with Fortune Feimster, or his previous work on radio variety shows, or his Food Network series, Baked. Comedy nerds and reality-TV buffs may even recall Papa as the host of The Marriage Ref, produced by his buddy Jerry Seinfeld, or the deeper cut of his short-lived NBC sitcom, Come To Papa. Come To Papa‘s demise allowed Papa’s co-star Steve Carell to audition for NBC’s adaptation of The Office, and two decades later, Papa’s stand-up career is still chugging along, and he and his wife have raised two daughters. Now that they’re both old enough to leave the nest, Papa finds he has even more to joke about.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Though Papa has a long professional and friendly association with Seinfeld, this hour in particular covers similar ground as Chad Daniels had earlier this year in his Empty Nester special, also on Netflix.
Memorable Jokes: How happy is Papa to have his daughters out of the house?
“Nobody tells you how hard it’s gonna be pretending to be sad,” he quips, adding: “I think I might be happier than I’ve ever been.”
“You want to think he’s all right, moving on with his life, micro-dosing and watching Rick and Morty at home by himself. That’s what I’m doing.”
DNA tests have not only brought all of your family’s secrets out in the open, but they’ve also brought a lot of potential fans-turned-cousins out of the woodwork. And while plenty of younger comedians speak openly onstage about going to therapy, Papa laughs that off. He doesn’t need to know why he eats and drinks too much. “Life’s hard and that stuff’s fun to do,” he says. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, as he explains teachers were so hard on kids when he was growing up that: “We didn’t need Adderall. We were focused!” Besides, therapy sounds like a no-win situation because you’re never truly fixed, and if we were, he might be out of a job?! “There’d be no comedy if we were happy all the time.”
But Papa goes even further in revealing his potential defects and shortcomings, copping to regularly shoplifting. “Try it, it’s fun!” he argues in a time when the media and politicians have latched onto corporate theft as an issue.
He also devotes some time to more everyday observational topics, such as people showing too much of their feet or their bodies or their grossness at the airport and in other public settings. He’s quick to make fun of his own body to keep you on his side, too.
And as he has gotten older, he realizes how much he’s like his parents, and thinks about how they must think of him the same way he thinks about his daughters.
Our Take: A once and former longtime opener for Seinfeld, Papa recently helped make news during a podcast chat with his famous funny friend, getting Seinfeld to express his second thoughts about whether or not “the left” has made comedy for difficult for comedians. Seinfeld realized his error on that, noting that it’s the comedian’s job to adapt to audiences, much like an Olympic skier adjusts to slalom gates. “You have to make the gate,” Seinfeld realizes now. Or again.
Papa has never faced that kind of problem or backlash.
But as his new hour also demonstrates, he’s not particularly interested in skiing off course. Or even knowing which of his friends (comedian or otherwise) are crashing the gates. As Papa jokingly asks, do you really want to know the political viewpoints of your friends and neighbors? His reply: “Not if you want friends you don’t!”
He’s very much a don’t worry, be happy kind of comedian, and some of the themes he explores in this hour echo those in his previous two Netflix specials, 2020’s You’re Doing Great! and 2022’s What A Day.
Making fun of strangers is one thing. But Papa doesn’t want to be too hard on himself, and doesn’t want you to do likewise. He likens life to the simple concept of not wanting to eat pizza by yourself. That’s how he says he found himself with a wife and kids. “We’re all working off the same brochure,” he argues, no matter how much we may try to distance ourselves from the generations before and after ourselves. And on that, we certainly all can stay on the same page.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Papa’s not going to make waves, but he’ll certainly keep you current and calm for an hour.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.