David Spade: Take the Hit (1998)

Starring: David Spade
Grade: D

I love me some David Spade, and he can be great on stage. Unfortunately, Take the Hit was not one of those times.

Summary

Spade crosses a variety of topics including his relationships and early failures with women, flying and dealing with flight attendants, his mother and stepfather (and his real dad being a funny creep), concerts (with a very funny roast of R.E.M.), bands being gay and him not knowing about it, getting hit by a car, the TV show COPS, and going to the movies. In-between, there are some fun stories about how in 5th Grade he was gifted a t-shirt with his own face on it and he wore it to school, Brad Pitt going to his school for one year and his grandma loving it, his drug dealer friend, and much more that he rambles on about.

My Thoughts:

There are some genuinely funny bits in Take the Hit, but you can count them on one hand. One in particular was about going to the zoo and hearing about how a man went into an enclosure because he thought they were “calling him in”. His impression of the bears was really funny. The McDonald’s bit was also really good because his impression of the manager coming in to fix things was spot on. Spade’s facial expressions and odd delivery really carry it. Honestly, this is the only reason the special is watchable.

Though he has a lot of material with some good jokes here and there, it takes like four or five things to actually get to a solid punchline. Because of this, it’s very easy to zone out, lose focus, and get a little bored. Sometimes, it seems like Spade does the same while he’s on stage. It’s just not worth the time if you have to sit through so much shit to get to one mildly funny thing. The sound effects he does all the time can be good, but if you milk it as much as he does because it’s his only way to segue into another joke, it gets tiring pretty quickly.

It was a good idea to film the special in Phoenix. Though Spade is from Scottsdale, he has a bit of a home crowd to support him. They try their hardest to laugh at every single sound effect Spade does, but I just know that if I paid to see David Spade: Take the Hit, I would be a bit disappointed. The song from the intro and end credits was pretty good though (“In the Meantime” by Spacehog), and it was cool to see Spade walk directly off the stage, through the crowd and lobby, and outside to end the show. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a stand-up special. It would’ve been even cooler to have him just go straight to the car so he could drive off. That would’ve been funny.

The thing is, if one of the biggest highlights of the special is the song in the credits, you’d understand why this would be a bit frustrating. This is coming from a David Spade fan too!