Sandwiches & Cats [Enhanced]

Michael Showalter | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 13, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Label: JDUB RECORDS
• ASIN: B000WM70ZO
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,954 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Showalter, November 21, 2007

By 

some guy "---------" (walla walla) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sandwiches & Cats [Explicit] (MP3 Download)

Having been a fan of his since that MTV sketch show "The State," I bought this album having seen some of Showalter's standup last year. I'd say, if you like his previous work (Stella, Wet Hot American Summer) then you'll get this. Showalter's sense of humor is hard to pin down in words, a lot of it comes from his delivery and persona, which is usually enthusiastic yet capable of wild mood swings. He gets a lot of mileage out of weird voices and fixating on small things.

I was curious how his stage act would translate to a comedy album. So much of what's funny about this guy comes across visually, and a lot of hs humor is conceptual or 'anti-humor' (when I saw him perform, he told very few traditional 'jokes' and instead gave a funny Power-Point presentation, then played some embarrassing cuts from his iTunes.)

The CD includes stand-up material recorded in front of an audience as well as some skits and musical numbers. The standup is well done, but my main complaint would be that it's rather short. There's probably less than 30 minutes of standup, the best bits are 'Cats' which finds Showalter reacting to the audience and improvising brilliantly, 'The Apartment' where he reads some awful high school poetry, and 'Requip' where he makes fun of 'Restless Leg Syndrome."

The skits (which are studio cuts, not performed in front of an audience) are uneven, 'Berhune Orchids' and 'Term Werner Cable' are the weak cuts, there is very little replay value in them and they don't really fit with the rest of the album thematically. The rest of the skits are framed as mock articles for a travel magazine, ostensibly written by Showalter, where he has a lot of fun goofing on 'writerly' descriptions of sumptuous meals (seriously, this guy has some food fixation).

All in all, I'm a fan and this CD delivered. It could have been a little longer and some editing could have been done to make it 'tighter; but tightness isn't necessarily what this guy's going for.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, September 17, 2010

By 

seagoat8888 "seagoat" (los angeles, ca United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sandwiches & Cats (Audio CD)

[I'm writing the same review for Michael Ian Black's 'I am a Wonderful Man' and Michael Showalter's 'Sandwiches and Cats' because they came out around the same time and the two comedians are practically joined at the hip.]

I am a huge fan of The State, of Wet Hot American Summer, and I even liked Stella (or at least better than the masses seemed to). I think Michael and Michael are really funny comedic actors and writers. But these stand-up albums aren't very funny. Most of the stand-up feels really trite, stuff you could hear at any comedy club on an average night. Some of it might feel a bit 'edgier' but hey, I pretend to be a racist for laughs too. I'm not selling an album of it.

Black dilutes his routine with a lot of unfunny asides ("Say what you will about XXX, and really, say what you will..."). The big ego bit feels a bit stale, despite its potential -- and it's not even consistent! Later on he's self-deprecating and paints himself as a wimp. Altamont reference, talk about cutting-edge!

Showalter's album is more uneven, higher highs and lower lows. He seems so fascinated with his everyday observations ("Starbucks coffee is too hot and too bitter" drags on for 20 seconds) and most of the humor seems to be about "look how random I can be!" His studio-recorded endeavors mostly keep with this idea. And the girl who brings her cats to the show... Sure, that was rude, but he tries to milk it for comedy for several minutes and comes of unfunny and rude. "The Apartment" is pretty funny, and the Sandwich bit is decent.

I hope to see more sketch comedy from these brilliant guys, but now I know to avoid their audio recordings.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good, January 22, 2008

By 

Sean Douglas (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sandwiches & Cats (Audio CD)

This album was hilarious. It has songs dispersed throughout the stand-up tracks. The songs were very funny, especially "The Mountain". There is also a very funny, very NPR sounding ad for an apple farm. This cd is varied. There are a lot of things going on. It's hard to pick a favorite because the entire cd is so good, but my favorite stand-up portion of the cd is probably "Coffee". I highly recommend this cd to any fans of Stella or Michael Showalter, and I actually found this to be much funnier than Michael Ian Black's recent stand-up cd.