Just Your Everyday Sickypants

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More About

• Dan Cummins
• Mitch Hedberg

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Dan Cummins uses his laid-back demeanor as a secret weapon: He’s so skilled at playing the genial everyman that his pitch-black punchlines come as a genuine surprise. Whether riffing on cannibalism, milking laughs from animal extinctions, or going to the precipice with an incest joke, he isn’t afraid to go really dark while keeping a charmingly self-effacing smile on his face. It’s black-hearted stuff that stand-up comedy fans from both sides of the aisle — mainstream and alternative — can appreciate. There’s a refreshing lack of bullshit or preciousness in Cummins’ comedy, even when he’s dashing off unexpectedly surreal non sequiturs that share some DNA with the late Mitch Hedberg’s hallmark punchlines. That’s a unique skill, and it has allowed Cummins to blow up in a way that other comics with a similarly dark and surrealist sensibility have not. He has two Comedy Central specials and a string of late-night talk-show appearances under his belt, while his comedy albums Revenge Is Near and Crazy with a Capital F have been commercial and critical successes. Given his subtly subversive sensibility, his wide appeal demonstrates there’s a sick and twisted heart beating within many a comedy fan, no matter how mainstream they may think they are.
Wed., July 6, 8 p.m., 2011