Comedian Patton Oswalt returns to Netflix for his latest comedy special “I Love Everything”. Patton first came to my attention in his role as Spence on the classic sitcom The King of Queens. I knew Patton was a comic; however I’d never seen any of his stand up acts, preferring to enjoy his television work and voice-over work in animated films such as Ratatouille and more recently The Secret Life of Pets 2.
Since the rise of social media, I’ve always felt that as much as the platform helps comics, it also hurts them. Too often, jokes are ruined and are rarely fresh by the time the public gets around to seeing the comic perform. For that reason, I purposely avoided watching any of Patton’s routines so I could get a new gauge of his material.
Patton opens his set speaking on his desire to leave the industry after his wife Michelle McNamara, a well-known true-crime writer and journalist, passed away in 2016. The story sets up a Segway for Patton to discuss giving up on life before finding love again with his current wife, actress Meredith Salinger. One of the things I respected about the bit was that Oswalt never mentions that he is married to someone in the industry. Instead, he paints a humanized portrait of his new marriage.
Throughout the one hour set, Oswalt touches on everything from growing up in my home area of Northern Virginia to his love of Denny’s. However, there were two bits in particular that I truly enjoyed the most. The first was a bit where Oswalt reminisced on his time working as a DJ, and his company wanted to use audio cassettes as oppose to records or compact discs. As a former DJ myself, I could only imagine trying to DJ a wedding and using audio tapes to entertain a crowd. The next bit was Oswalt recanting a story of his missing out on the chance to enter a real Millennium Falcon at the red carpet Hollywood premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story, due to his daughter’s science fair project. As a parent myself, I can relate to the bit of having to pass on concerts to attend an event for my son instead.
While the special is rated TV-MA, Oswalt rarely goes on a profane laced tangent during his set. Now there is an F-Bomb here and there, Oswalt never uses profanity just to curse. Oswalt also avoids both sexual and gross-out humor, so I feel that this comedy special may be suitable for mature teens.
“I Love Everything” is a harmless special that new and old fans of Patton Oswalt will enjoy. While there was never a highly quotable moment, I do recommend checking it out if you want a quick laugh. As a heads up, make sure to stick around after the credits for a bonus comedy special featuring comic Bob Rudin.
Final Grade C+
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