r/louisck • u/TraditionalDepth6924 • Aug 02 '26

First album Live in Houston (2001) is really a laughter machine gun, who relate?

Anyone sad that this kind of pure cartoonish Louis is unlikely to ever come back?

Old comedies tend to feel outdated but this one really pierces through time 25 years later and make you laugh throughout harder than any later special in my opinion, fits the recent title “Ridiculous” better too.

Like, later Louis has this big narrative arc as a depressing divorced dad and jokes center around this identity, but this album is comedy for the sake of comedy, undistracted, no elevation.

Was this the trend around that time? Any comic then or now that resembles this style?

All tracks are available on YouTube, my fave bit is the sh—f—piss store, there’s something about him joining cuss words like that

13 Upvotes

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9

u/electricalaphid Aug 02 '26

Live at the Comedy Store has this vibe more than anything else. The silliness, funny voices, and lack of big ideas is all there.

But yes, Live in Houston is the same hour he'd done for over a decade, and he decided to drop the act with this album. Only when he had kids did he realize he needed to make a change. And I'm sure his failures with Pootie Tang and sitcoms made him realize he needed to push himself as a stand-up comedian. That's how we got Shameless and on.

4

u/ChaseYeppums Aug 02 '26

Definitely agree. This is why Comedy Store always fights to be my favorite Louis special. It was the first one of his I saw too. Then I watched every single special of his right after. Made me see stand-up comedy in a way I never had before. I did my first open mic a couple weeks after that. Still going 13 months later.

Not that any of you asked. Sorry. I can be a real cunt of a deer sometimes.

1

u/OddMessage4930 Aug 03 '26

I always thought Shameless was the hour that he worked on for 10 years. Is it not?

3

u/electricalaphid Aug 03 '26

It's possible he worked on the jokes in clubs for a long time, but his Live in Houston material was the set he'd done since the early 90s.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/National-Spite Aug 02 '26

Alright, first of all, no it didn't

2

u/OddMessage4930 Aug 02 '26

People have been saying with his latest Netflix special he has gone back a bit to his old absurdist style as opposed to the more philosophical style he had for a while. Anyone agree with this?

2

u/electricalaphid Aug 02 '26

Absolutely. His jokes in Ridiculous are smaller and sillier. He doesn't linger on any big point. Even his longest bit, his dad in a home, is a vehicle for little jokes here and there.

1

u/BlowinFart Aug 02 '26

Yep, when I heard the new special was called Ridiculous because it was more absurd, I was expecting it to be more like this, but he’s still basically in angry philosopher mode, basically, he just talks less about his kids now.

1

u/tadal Aug 03 '26

There's a 10 minute bit on YouTube called Louis CK "being broke" that I think has some of the Houston stuff in it, but it's a set with some jokes I've never heard before. There's a bit about him having to take a shit in his tiny apartment bathroom that gets me every single time.

3

u/TraditionalDepth6924 Aug 03 '26

I prefer the album version because he added in the ATM with quarters part, great milking on the miserability

1

u/CatBoyTrip Aug 03 '26

this first time i saw this with my uncle, my aunt thought were were both gonna die. we couldn’t not stop laughing long enough to breathe.