Tourgasm, It's Got to Go.

I tuned into HBO on Sunday June 11^th, 2006 to check out one of my favorite shows of the summer Entourage as well as to check out the premiere of Lucky Louie and Tourgasm. As always Entourage was brilliant and Lucky Louie was a refreshing take on your run of the mill sitcom. However, I was troubled by Tourgasm.

What I expected from this show was an insight into the day to day lives of one of the top comedians in America and three up and comers as they were on a nationwide tour. What I got was a lot of drama and whining which left me feeling like I had just watched an episode of The Real World or Laguna Beach rather than seeing four friends enjoy a trip together. I cannot help but get the feeling that had the cameras not been there, things would have gone down differently and the show comes off as unbearably sweet and bubble-gummy, with a moral lesson at the end of each episode. For example, I don’t need to watch a half hour episode about why and how Gary Gulman was late for lunch on day 6 in Missouri. I really don’t give a damn. Now give me a half hour of Gary Gulman on stage, doing what he does best, let me know and I’ll tune in. Tourgasm is remarkably like an episode of Full-House, it begins with some type of argument between the four of them, and eventually at the end they all hug and the show cuts off with a pull-away shot of their bus with everyone learning some sort of lesson.

Try not to get me wrong, Dane Cook, Robert Kelly, Gary Gulman, and Jay Davis are all brilliant comedians. I’ve seen each of them live, listened to them on the radio and television and I would recommend absolutely anyone who appreciates their art to go out and see them. However, for everything that these four bring to the stage with their standup, they take away from television with Tourgasm.