Gabriel Iglesias Presents Stand-Up Revolution (DVD Review)
I was pretty open to taking a chance on this Comedy Central stand-up series, hosted by Mexican-American comedian Gabriel Iglesias. As with a lot of comedians who seem to have a known presence on Comedy Central, it can be hit or miss by the time that particular person is given the chance to be seen weekly with their own series. It has worked in the past for comedians like Dave Chapelle (Chapelle’s Show) and currently with Daniel Tosh (Tosh.0), but has also missed for people like Jeff Dunham (Jeff Dunham Show). So given my open mind and the desire to laugh at some stand-up, I gave Gabriel Iglesias’ Stand-Up Revolution a shot and checked out the entire seven-episode series on DVD.
Series: 
The concept of this show is incredibly simple. It features Gabriel Iglesias lending the microphone to a bunch of his comedian friends so they can perform some of their acts. First we get the crudely animated opening credits sequence, and then things get underway. Based out of Phoenix, Arizona; Gabriel Iglesias introduces every episode of the show by doing a little bit of stand-up, sometimes calling on his friend and co-host Martin Moreno for banter, and eventually calls up to stage the first performer. This is repeated two more times per episode. So essentially, every episode of the show brings you 3 to 4 mini standup performances. Adding to this, the Latin Rock/Hip-Hop band Ozomatli is the house band for the series, so the audience gets to enjoy their sound in between acts and during the opening and closing credits. It is a half an hour series, consisting of seven episodes total, spread across two discs.
My overall response to the series was not too positive. While I do think Iglesias is quite capable of being very affable and maintaining a very charismatic persona, even after only seven episodes, very little of the material he was offering made me smile that much. He has the right kind of energy that serves him well and makes it easy to see why he got the chance to host his own show, but a lot of it fell flat for me overall. The interactions he has with Martin on the side never really offered much in the way of entertainment beyond seeing the two of them making each other laugh and his praise for the comedians that would follow him didn’t help matters much. His appreciation for Ozomatli being the band on his show is well noted though.
As for the other comedians, one must understand that comedy is of course subjective, but very few of them made me laugh. I was game for laughter; I was looking forward to having a good time and smiling during the various acts that came up, but with few exceptions, I really didn’t enjoy watching these comedians tell variations on the same sort of material. They all mostly dealt with their heritage and status in America, as most of them were either fellow Mexican-Americans or of another Latin descent, with some exceptions, and it started to feel pretty stale hearing the same version of one main joke. However, even on their own, none of these stand-ups in particular really stood out to me. Some were more tolerable than others, but I was frankly surprised with how unenjoyable most of the acts were. To the series’ credit, it wisely had the weaker acts in the middle of the episode, so it could end on a higher note with the more experienced comedians, but this still did little for me.
There’s nowhere else to really go in explaining my thoughts on the series. It has a simple setup and is a pretty structurally easy format to base a weekly show around. The only problem was that I did not laugh very much during it. I can only hope that those who are fans of Iglesias, his brand of humor, and the people he associates himself with get more out of this series than I did, but it did not bring me much joy. Fluffy and his friends may have been having a blast, but it needs more than the jams from Ozomatli to keep me entertained.
Video: 
While it is a DVD, the show manages to look decent enough. The show was presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio with anamorphic enhancement. Thanks to a number of cameras being employed, the show consisted of enough shots of the stage interspersed with close-ups and crowd shots. The image was fairly sharp as long as it was focused on Gabriel and the other comedians, but I did notice a few instances where the image felt off due to blurring. The stage setup was actually quite colorful and this was quite apparent throughout, making this DVD look pretty decent, while I dealt with the various joke tellers.
Audio:
The audio was presented in a 2.0 Stereo mix which proved to be perfectly adequate. Gabriel and his buddies always came through loud and clear and the fairly lively crowd made their presence known well enough. Given the nature of the material and the show’s format, it met my expectations. This is not a DVD or a series as a whole that would need an incredible audio track, but it sounds good enough throughout.
Special Features:
On the back of the DVD box it is stated that this set includes, “extended episodes, outtakes, and a music video.” Not much to take away from all of this. The episodes being longer certainly didn’t make me excited by the time I realized how little fun I was having. The outtakes are fairly hit or miss. And the music video is really only within one of the episodes and not featured separately. I did not expect much here, so something is always better than nothing I guess, it just still does not amount to much.
Final Thoughts:
I wanted to have a good time kickin’ back and watching some comedy. Gabriel Iglesias Presents: Stand-Up Revolution did not really deliver an enjoyable experience for me. It is scattered, at best, with laughs amongst Iglesias and some of his friends, but so much of it fell flat. Brevity should have been this shows’ key to success, but the extended acts tired me out more than kept me hoping for a strong finish. I am not sure if Comedy Central is going to shoot for a second season, but you can count me out on that one. There’s plenty of Fluffy to go around for others.
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