Last Comic Standing, the Finale: Dat’s All, Folks!

As you probably recall from last week’s recap, I’m back, to the delight of some and the chagrin of many. Specifically, many of the contestants. Just ask them. Dale is on vacation in Las Vegas with his lovely wife Jill, and unless something went wrong, they were in the audience for Tuesday night’s final episode and he will be sending in a live report within the next few days. Until then, you’ll have to make do with me.

I also want to lay it all out on the table right now: I’m rooting for Ralphie. I’m biased, and I can’t pretend I’m not. I spoke to Ralphie last week for over an hour and a half, and the only reason you haven’t seen the interview on the site is that my cheap tape recorder completely screwed up the tape, and it’s unusable. And I’m STILL upset about it. But in that interview, I became an even bigger Ralphie May fan than I already was.

And speaking of interviews, if you haven’t already, make sure you check out Dale Sherman’s excellent exclusive interviews with Sean Kent and Cory Kaheney.

Tonight is, obviously, the final episode, and over half the two-hour show is filled with recaps. So let’s get started!

The final episode actually starts with material taped two weeks ago at the same time as last week’s episode. How do I know this? Ralphie told me just about everything we would see on the first hour. OK, OK, I’ll shut up about that, except to say that, from what I can tell, everything up to the point where they “dismiss” the evicted comics was taped, and the rest was live.

Host Jay Mohr announces that the winner will appear Wednesday night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which he also mentioned on his own appearance on that show Monday night. If you missed it, the highlight of his brief time was the comment, “Oh, of course I know who won! But I can’t tell you, I’m an Executive Producer, I’d have to sue myself!”

In any case, Jay warms up the crowd with some funny ATM material, even name-checking Koko B. Ware! He segues into a bit about buying diapers, which my girlfriend Maria really enjoyed. He then introduces the five finalists, to tremendous applause.

Tonight Show and, obviously, LCS talent scouts Bob Read and Ross Mark guide us through a videotaped segment showing how the five finalists made it to the semifinal rounds (Episodes One and Two to you and me). Mostly filler stuff here, repeating some of the material we’ve already seen from the comics. Rich Vos steals the segment with his comment to Bob and Ross that he’d be selling his CDs in the hallway after his audition.

Back on the Vegas stage, Tess mentions that she thought she was auditioning for the Tonight Show. I have a comment here, but I think I’ll leave it be. Jay comments on how Ross and Bob are starting to look alike, which prompts Ralphie to add, “married couples usually do.” See, this is where the comics shine, not in fake competitions on Venice Beach. If there is another season of LCS, I sincerely hope there will be more of this and less of those competitions.

Rich Vos says his fondest memory of the show will be of meeting his fiancé, Dave Mordal. He also hopes to get an endorsement deal with an iron or ironing board company.

Next, in the finest American Idol tradition, we are “treated” to a montage of the best of the worst auditions. First, we see a long string of impressions. I must admit I laughed at the “Bill Cosby as Gandalf,” but whether that was because it was sad or funny, I’m not sure. We also see a number of ethnic jokes, some microphone mishaps, and some pratfalls.

Then, we get to the REALLY weird part. First comes The Banana. Really. Then we hear from “Yucko the Clown,” a gimmick that has real potential except that in this case, the jokes don’t seem to be there. Finally, the scariest is the guy whose audition consists of stripping down to nothing but socks and stomping away, complaining about only getting two minutes. Yikes.

Back from break, we welcome the five evicted finalists for a reunion. The first question is for the newly bald Sean Kent, how has his life changed since the show aired? Sean tells us that he became sick again, hence the bald head from chemotherapy. I should point out that Sean looks a lot better than I expected, given some of the stories I had heard about his recent condition.

For his part, Dave Mordal claims that since being on the show, he has cousins who want to sleep with him again. Rob Cantrell claims that his Kindergarten students are easier to deal with than Rich and Sean. Tere attributes her new blue-tinted hairdo to a fling with one of the Blue Man Group. “At least part of him isn’t blue anymore,” quips Ralphie.

From here we move on to the friction between Sean and Rich, with appropriate video highlights. Back in Vegas, Sean claims to have become friends with Rich by the end of that week, and admits that his behavior was at least partly attributable to him “being a bit of a baby about it” after they had all been up extremely late the night before and were irritable. Now, see, Sean, that’s all I ever asked of you, was just to admit that you were at least partly at fault. Between that and the “Jerk” t-shirt, I might get to like Sean a little. Maybe.

Rich agrees that he and Sean have become friends, and tries to shift a little of the blame to “the other smokers in the house” for not backing him up on said smoking arguments.

Taped excerpts of the voting booth challenges.