At first glance, this special looks and sounds a lot like Chad Daniels’ previous comedy specials he’s released on YouTube, but it still managed to make my Top 10 of 2021 list, while also earning honorable mentions on both my Best of 2022 and 2023 lists. Will his jump from YouTube to Netflix this year pay pidends for Daniels? How much material does he have to unleash a great fourth hour of comedy in four years?
CHAD DANIELS: EMPTY NESTSTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: Daniels, a 49-year-old Minnesota native, filmed this hour in St. Paul, and he’s the story’s protagonist, as his two children (a 24-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter) are gone. At one point, he jokes about dropping his daughter off at college in Southern California and wondering what life would be like when he returned to an empty house in Minnesota. Turns out, it’s not so bad! Especially since he has a new girlfriend (comedian Kelsey Cook) who’s moved in with him, bringing all kinds of new comedic situations to explore.
What comedy specials will it remind you of?As a respected comedian who has built a career full of solid observational material but has somehow yet to earn the broader fame (or big streaming special) he deserves, Daniels shares that with Kyle Kinane. At least until now.
Memorable jokes: Daniels endears himself to his local audience from the start with a routine about how Minnesotans have at least one thing in common with New Yorkers: telling strangers you’re from there prompts immediate mockery for your accent. “You don’t get that anywhere else,” he explains, and makes his point by showing how strange it would be if we acted that way with Americans from other cities or states. One experience you might not share anywhere else, however, is the one Daniels depicts when he finds himself in an awkward encounter with a seemingly disabled woman at a New York crosswalk, who nonetheless out-maneuvers him as she crosses the street.
Watching the interaction between a boy and his father on an escalator leads Daniels to reflect on how parents respond to their children’s sometimes incomprehensible questions. Is it better to say you don’t know than to attribute the meaning of things to God? Daniels certainly believes so. Otherwise, he jokes, “Your kids are going to go to school full of Water boy.”
Which leads him to conclude, “I think you just have to be better than your dad to be a good father. That’s a rule I made up to make myself feel better.” Which makes perfect sense once you hear him reveal what his father did to stunt his progress as a teenager. But of course, the special is titled Empty nest syndromeSo we’re going to hear how Daniels himself reacted once he dropped his youngest son off at college, what he did upon returning to his empty Minnesota home, and what he’s like now that his girlfriend (comedian Kelsey Cook) has moved in with him.
That makes for some fun new situations, not only because he claims she’s allergic to everything, but also because he’s apparently made sure there aren’t any pregnancy scares after he’s had a vasectomy. There shouldn’t be, being the operative term. After all, Daniels already has a twenty-something son who’s getting married, and he couldn’t imagine having another child now who’s potentially the same age or younger than a future grandchild.
Our opinion: At the same time, Daniels proves that he is a comedian who commands his audience.
After his opening routine, he declares: “I have some heads and shoulders shaking. It doesn’t matter, I don’t care. I prefer either one.”
He then begins to talk about two adult brothers kissing on the lips, which he uses to contrast with his own children, and how he has never kissed his own sister on the cheek even though she desperately needs that affection sometimes. He compares American attitudes toward morality, honor, and shame to Japanese traditions, and then begins to question the women sitting near the front of the stage to see how they would react if their brothers tried to kiss them on the lips. By the end, he has not only fully fleshed out the observation, but has also resolved any tension with the audience by declaring, “You can all relax. That ends the question portion for the front row.” Unlike many comedians who use audience work as a means to an end to set up their scenes, Daniels only asks for interaction once he has already established his point and demonstrated what is funny about it. That is the mark of a confident, experienced comedian.
He demonstrates his confidence even more clearly when at one point he botches an opening line of the story about a visit to a Starbucks at the airport, accidentally starting to say Subway instead. But rather than edit it out, he capitalizes on his mistake by making a new joke that works. “Well, shit, maybe that should be the joke, I don’t know.” Certainly, that could have been a trick he plays on us to make us feel like we’re experiencing a real moment that’s just for us. But almost to prove he’s not lying, Daniels then starts the whole bit over again, as if to allow for some editing in post-production, to tell his intended bit about the encounter at the airport Starbucks.
Either way, he clearly enjoys his ability to elicit varied reactions without having to please any particular audience. Daniels says he was worried that in this political climate, he would have to write two completely different hours of jokes to appeal to different audiences depending on the gig, but he expresses gratitude for being able to hold his own. And where, exactly? “I’m on the left, the line is right at my foot.”
Could he wade into politically thorny issues? Of course. And he has ready answers, too, even if they’re not the ones you might expect. If you try to corner him about trans athletes, for example, Daniels will respond with opinions that make you wonder why you ever made such a big deal about the issue in the first place. And, like any great comedian, he also knows how to tie his opinions up in a bow, making references to his previous one-liners and metaphors that also call into question your thoughts on other potentially pisive topics.
As he jokes about our more extremist neighbors: “The far left updates more than Apple products. The problem with the far right is that they haven’t updated even once, ever.”
To paraphrase the classic Stealers Wheel hit, with the clowns to his left and the jokers to his right, here’s Daniels, caught in the middle with us.
Our calling: STREAM IT. If for some reason you haven’t seen or heard Chad Daniels before, now is a great time to check him out. No matter your political persuasion.
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Sean L. McCarthy is a stand-up comedian. He also posts half-hour podcast episodes featuring comedians revealing their origin stories:The comic book presents the latest and the first.
