Martin Lawrence Presents: 1st Amendment Stand-Up Season Three DVD Review
Posted by Randy Harrison on 08.09.2009
Martin Lawrence is back with another crop of up and coming comedians in season three of his series, 1st Amendment Stand-Up. Does he find a batch of hacks or is he able to put together a season's worth of talent with the next generation of stand-ups? Click on in for the full review of the new 2-disc set...
Martin Lawrence has done a lot in his career, from being a successful stand-up comedian with multiple stand-up specials, to starring in a hit TV series, to building a career as a blockbuster movie star, but for the past three seasons he's been helping up and coming comics get the same break that he got as executive producer of the Starz cable channel's stand-up series, 1st Amendment Stand-Up. In the same vein as HBO's One Night Stand, BET's Comic View, or Comedy Central's Premium Blend series, the show features two to four comedians putting together five to eight minute sets of material showcasing their best stuff. After two successful seasons that have seen comedy mainstays like Lavell Crawford, Thea Vidale, Alonzo Bodden and others grace the stage, the third season of the show will be released on DVD on August 25th. Has Martin Lawrence been able to find enough new talent to fill another season with laughs or has the well run dry? Let's take a look.
The Sets
Doug Williams gets every show started with a couple of minutes of his own stuff and while most times his material is solid, there are times where it runs a little long. A couple of episodes have Williams getting nearly as much or more time than all of the comics being featured, which isn't the best plan considering that the showcase is there for them and not so much for Williams. On the whole though, Williams is a solid host and is able to get people warmed up with some good laughs before bringing on the featured performers.
As with most comedy compilation series, you get only about seven or eight minutes from each comic so it's a little hard to decide who is really funny and who just has one funny bit that they were able to milk out into enough time to fill out a mini-set. There are a few that definitely stand out in this series including Rickey Smiley, whose bit on funerals was one of the funniest things on either disc, Deon Cole, who grew on me during his set after not really impressing me for the first couple of minutes, and Ray Lipowski, who was incredibly funny including ripping heavily on former Apprentice star Omarosa who was in the front row for his set.
With the good comes the bad, like Mozan, who had some good concepts but just didn't flesh them out enough to make me laugh. Considering she only got about four minutes of time, I'm guessing that the producers felt the same way. Rodman's set had a couple of moments, but most of the time it was barely intelligible as his gimmick makes it hard to even understand what he's saying sometimes. Angelo Lozada's set comes off as bland and flavorless as his jokes seem to be pretty generic and there's nothing that really made me do anything more than chuckle. The duds are few and far between though as stronger sets from B-Phlat, Will-E-Robo and Teddy Carpenter really help to bring the set above average and keep things from getting too far out of whack.
There are ten full episodes of the show and two compilation episodes that feature some of the best comedians from the season. The two compilation shows are actually interesting in that rather than just clip together the comedian's performances from the earlier shows, we get new footage of stuff that didn't make it into their season's set. This is actually pretty cool as there's some good stuff in here that wouldn't have been seen otherwise. There are a few exceptions as with some of the comics you can tell that their best stuff went into what was already shown, but as a whole this was cool as it gave me a chance to see a few more minutes of material from favorites like Rickey Smiley and Deon Cole.
The Presentation
The presentation is glitzy as the stage is a HUGE stage with plenty of lighting and the background features a couple of huge video screens. It's a whole different ballgame than most stand-up DVD's and it's actually a nice change of pace to see the theater and the stage lit so well. As for the presentation of the DVD, it's fairly standard as it's a full-frame format with regular audio and no surround sound. While that didn't bother me at all, people who are picky about sound and visuals or people that have home theater set-ups will likely have a bit of a problem as it seems like they've skimped a little on the quality by not going widescreen with the surround sound.
Special Features
There's not a lot to talk about for special features because there are none on the set. I guess you could technically classify the bonus episodes as special features, but since they ran as part of the third season's original run on Starz, that's a bit of a stretch. I was amazed by the fact that there was no commentary on anything, no behind-the-scenes featurette, nothing. Even a short interview with Martin Lawrence talking about some of the comedians we'd be seeing in the DVD set would have sufficed but again, it seems like Starz went the bare-bones route in putting the set together and just put the episodes onto DVD. This might not bode well for other Starz original series like the hilarious Party Down when it comes their time for the DVD treatment.
The 411: I was a little disappointed in the lack of extra features for the set, but the comedy was solid throughout. Minus a couple of bad patches, I was entertained and laughing with nearly every episode of the season. I haven't had the chance to see much of the first two seasons, but I know that season four will have a tough act to follow after this one. Not perfect by any means, but definitely good enough for a look from fans looking to see some of the next wave of comedy stars.
