Jon Reep's comedy isn't for me. He makes sure of that on his first stand-up album, Metro Jethro, in which he creates the divide that defines his comedy early and often -- it's small town versus big city; Us versus Them. Where you fall into either one of those two groups is likely going to determine how much you're able to enjoy Metro Jethro.
It's not that comedy can't be funny simply because you're unable to relate to it. It's that Reep doesn't seem all that interested in making it accessible to those who can't relate -- unless you simply want to laugh at the exaggerated "backwards" ways of the small-town South. I'm not all that interested in doing that, because it once again just creates a divide. I'd rather Reep find a way to draw me into his world, making me laugh because I'm made a part of it. Instead, he just keeps reminding me (and anyone else from an urban area) that we're on the outside. We can't understand, Reep tells us over and over. Ok. But that makes it hard to laugh, too.
The picture I'm painting is that Reep's comedy is mean-spirited or hostile towards the "other." It isn't. He's an energetic, upbeat comic who knows exactly who his audience is and plays to them exceedingly well. On Metro Jethro, he creates what could be more than one signature bit: his "metro jethro" routine (a term for a person from a small town displaced in the big city) could be another "You might be a redneck," but Reep doesn't spend much time developing it. Same goes for a concept he introduces called "townitude," which is the attitude of a person from a small town. Either bit could have been a breakout for Reep, but they feel anemic; though both routines share a common thesis with the rest of the album, Reep isn't able to pull his ideas together so that they cohere to these concepts. They're just ideas thrown out there, like most everything else. That's too bad.
Reep pokes fun at the entire small-town, NASCAR-watching, town-fair-attending culture he's simultaneously embracing. That makes it hard to dislike him -- he appears to get the joke just as much as he's making it. But it's evident throughout Metro Jethro that his comedy is for those in his inner circle (though I could argue that his "inner circle" actually makes up a large part of the country). For those people, Metro Jethro is probably a lot of fun. At the end of the day, though, it's not for me. Jon Reep won't let it be.
- Album Release Date: 10/20/2009
- Label: Warner Bros. Records
- The Metro Jethro CD also comes with a bonus DVD of the stand-up special of the same name.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
