Last Comic Standing 6, The Finale: It’s Not Just a Finale, It’s 90 Minutes of Your Life!

Last Comic Standing has been doing alright with viewers this season. A look at the ratings for Episode 11 shows us that the show did a solid 5.0, and was second for both twos in the 18-49 demographics. As some readers may already know, LCS has been picked up for next summer by NBC, so there’s no fear that there won’t be another season, especially with numbers that make it a nice little ratings nest egg. Of course, the way some of the people on the NBC board write about the show, perhaps they’re living in fear instead that it will be back.

We’ll have some comments about this season, and what should come in the future, at the end of this article. So let’s just jump right into the finale for now. The show starts off with a rather clever little parody of the Olympics opening ceremony, starring our old friend, God’s Pottery. They sing a song about LCS while an orchestra and choir backs them up. As the song continues, gymnasts come out and leap around, while the final five emerge in tracksuits and Bill and Fearne come out with an Olympic flame. I thought the escalation of things occurring on stage came off a bit better than last week’s bit with Dan and the Dan Band, with the comics at least not having to play cute with some mediocre line-reading like they did at the start of Episode 11.

After Bill and Fearne tell the audience what to expect later in the episode – including the announcement of who will win – the camera cuts to a fake commercial showing Louis Ramey in a gym, shot-putting a rubber chicken while he is announced as the “Master of the Joke Toss.” After the commercial break, Iliza is seen in another one of these fake ads avoiding a vaulting horse and being named the “Comedy Horse.” Rather a mean thing to call her when you think about it. Like someone on the production team was trying hard not to laugh and told her, “Uh, yeah, we mean horse like in your ability to carry things like the competitions. Uh-huh. So when people see you they think of a horse. Yup. …don’t laugh, guys, don’t laugh … So, uh, wear that Horse badge proudly, Iliza!”

Fearne (who still looks slightly pissed this week, although I still can’t figure out why) and Bill introduce Joel McHale. Good, I love McHale’s Navy, so this will be funny. Oh, wait – it’s a guy from E! who hosts The Soup, which used to be Talk Soup. Essentially, that program is a chance for a commentator to look at clips of things happening on television during the week and make funny comments about it. I have to admit that I’m legally bound to not watch E!, ever since the whole Anna Nicole thing happened, so I don’t know how good he is on the program, but the earlier hosts of the show – Greg Kinnear and John Henson – were very good.

McHale runs through a montage of clips from earlier episodes, and it’s a bit that only mildly works, mainly because it’s hard to make fun of comedy – you either look like a bad heckler who wouldn’t know a joke if it hit you in the face, or you make the person you’re making fun of look like they … well … suck. McHale manages to pull off a few decent gags when going over Sean’s hilarious bedtime story to the Hefner girls, comparing Iliza to an “angry drunk guy,” and noting how she spends a lot of time showing off her body on the show, Marcus in his Wonder Woman outfit, saying Paul Foot was from the Shire, and how Esther Ku’s laugh beached whales. McHale then ends by warning the comics to avoid obscurity by not being hired by E!

At the next commercial break, Jeff is shown fighting a big ball in the gym and they call him a Comedy Ninja. He is followed by Jim Tavare in the gym using his double-bass as weights while being noted as having excellent “Bass-nastics” skills. Well, it’s not going to win prizes, but they’re cute bits and God love ‘em for being game to do the fake ads.

Jon Reep, who my wife wondered why was there until I reminded her that he won LCS last year (and that it didn’t mean Josh Blue lost, as Josh was from the season before that), comes out to do a set about his hometown of Hickory, what’s great about small towns, the Fourth of July, fireworks, and tubing down a river. Bill and Fearne ask Jon if he has any advice for the winner, and Jon states that the winner shouldn’t read the message boards. Instead, the winner should check out Jon’s website and buy his truck. Hmm, career going so good that he has to try to sneak in an ad about his used truck that he is selling to make some money. Boy, the career is just skyrocketing, isn’t it?

Well, heck, I can say what I want about Jon. He just told me that he doesn’t read the internet anyway, so I don’t have to worry about hate mail.

Seriously, I came away from this set with the same impression I did when he won last year – that’s he’s mildly amusing and I don’t have a problem watching him. I don’t think he could compete with anyone from this season and still win, but against his competition last year it did make sense that he won.

A long ad for Deal or No Deal appears next, and then they announce that Whitney Cumming won the Last Comic Driving contest. After the ad-break, we see the final “Olympic” ad with Marcus trying to lift weights and failing to do anything but tangle himself up under them. We then see a segment with the comics meeting with Triumph, who performs “Lay It On the Line.” Okay, okay, actually it’s Triumph the Insult Dog, and he does his usual bit of insulting the gang, which is pretty remarkable for anyone with a hand up their butt. Best line? Telling Iliza that America got to see her grow from a B to a C cup over the course of the series. That and his rephrasing of an old cliché, “Death is easy, Comedy is … Jeff Dye sucks.”

By this point, we’re over a half an hour into the show and no one has been eliminated yet. So the five comics are brought out to the stage as Bill announces that the first comic to be voted off is… Louis Ramey. That was a bit of a surprise. I didn’t think he had a very good set last week, but I thought it was better than some of the others, and figured him to leave about midway through. Ramey tells Bill and Fearne that he was grateful to get such a showcase for his career. He also states in a short bio segment that he had given up on ever getting to a national level with his standup, and that the show has really helped him.