The show starts off differently than most other stand-up acts I've seen. Instead of Cross himself coming up to the mike, a young boy with a bad bald-cap runs on stage and starts telling some of the Cross' jokes. While the observations that the boy makes are humorous, most of the laughs come from the fact that it is a kid saying these jokes and cursing on stage. While it felt a little cheap, it definitely started the evening off in a very different manner.
It isn't long though before Cross actually steps on stage and picks where "Lil Davey Cross" left off. After a hilariously planned interruption involving the sign-language interpreter, he then delves into drug humor, first about being addicted to the show "Intervention" and then about living close to a methadone clinic and his observations about the junkies that seem to surround the clinic.
It isn't long before Cross's political views creep into the show though. At the time of the show's filming (September of '09), the public health care debates were at their heights. During this segment of the show, Cross talks about the Tea Party groups, the necessity of free health care and the seemingly-diverse views of right-wing extremists who hate the direction the country is going to, but won't let you speak a bad word about the U.S. of A. While Cross goes quite a bit into his political views in Bigger and Blackerer, it really isn't to such an extreme to turn off most conservative viewers, provided of course, you have a sense of humor; but then again, if you didn't, would you be reading a review for a stand-up comedy show?
If you are able to find the humor in Cross's political topics, then you shouldn't have any problems with the follow-up subject of religion. He seems to spend most of his time ragging on Orthodox Jews and other odd extreme religions. He spends a good section of the show trying to figure out what religion he should be and eliminates everyone from the Catholics to Scientologists and the Mormons.
The show wraps up by backing into politically and religiously safer territory as Cross goes back into various anecdotes about he and his friends, but the show doesn't stop there as David Cross: Bigger and Blackerer comes with a lot of added material including a lot of cut footage from the television special. In fact, there is almost a half hour of added footage that got cut out, as well as another 10 minutes or so of some of Cross's older work. These topics include consumer products that don't really serve a purpose (like bigger mouths on Coors Light), live blogging and Twitter, Dane Cook (defending him actually), a story about his elderly mother and a story about a cab driver with Tourette's Syndrome and a Teddy Ruxpin. A lot of these jokes were cut from the special because either the audience interaction messed up the flow of the show, or the jokes themselves were very Boston (where the show was filmed) specific and wouldn't be as funny to the general TV viewing audience. The last bit of extra footage is actually some of Cross's older stand-up that he did in Seattle, Washington back in 2004.
Overall, David Cross: Bigger and Blackerer is a great show. If you find yourself on the opposite side of his political or religious views, you might have to have a bit of a thick hide or really good sense of humor for the middle section of the show, but even during this part of the show, the laughs are pretty non-stop. While Cross has been on the comedy scene for many years (both at the writer's table and in front of the camera), I only started following him since Arrested Development. As a result, I haven't seen too much of his stand-up, but if Bigger and Blackerer is a good sample of his other works, I'm going to start looking for his past releases.
