2 hours ago
1
It’s already been a huge month for Italians from Chicago. First the Pope, and now this: Matteo Lane gets his own hour of stand-up (and sometimes song) as part of the new Hularious slate of original comedy specials on Hulu.
MATTEO LANE: THE AL DENTE SPECIAL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: NBC and Peacock viewers may recognize Lane from his appearance just earlier this week on the primetime tribute to the late great Joan Rivers, where the Chicago native burst into song to honor her.
He’s got the pipes. In addition to fluency in five languages, Lane even lived in Italy as a classically trained opera and oil painter before embarking on a stand-up career in Chicago, and for the past several years, New York City.
Lane’s other screen credits also include episodes of Abbott Elementary and Survival of the Thickest, as well as an appearance in Netflix’s all-queer stand-up special Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution. His comedy star has been on the rise since the pandemic, with his self-released YouTube special last year, Hair Plugs & Heartache, earning more than 3.6 million views; it followed three advice specials he put out the year before that which attracted many millions more. This April, Lane also published a cookbook, Your Pasta Sucks.
His sincere and often revealing observations about his personal life and adventures as a gay comedian have endeared him to millions, and in this hour for Hulu, he reminisces about embarking on his first international comedy tour, embracing both his Italian and Mexican roots, and perhaps of course, a Mariah Carey story.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Lane is part of a Chicago comedy wave in the 2010s that also brought us Joel Kim Booster, but Lane’s boosterism of all things Italy makes him a fun counterpoint, too, to Sebastian Maniscalco. They just have very different ways of expressing and animating their love for their family’s homeland.
Photo: DisneyMemorable Jokes: He gets plenty of mileage out of the various incarnations of white women, from HR to PR, from young women comparing gelatos in Rome, to his TikTok feed full of women making pasta.
From his time in Italy (and by Italy, he means the country, “not Long Island”), where he has family in Sicily, he regales us with his encounters with the women who work in restaurants.“They’re either long gorgeous models or E.T. in a housecoat,” he quips. He also dishes on tourist traps in Amsterdam, how Australians remain a mystery to Americans, the unique flavors of “Uber culture” in different parts of the country, interacting with straight men at the gym, and that time he unwittingly hired an escort when he needed a back massage.
As Italian as Lane is, he’s also Mexican, and he fills us in on the time he appeared on a Mexican TV show that viewed his grandfather’s personal history in a much different light than Lane did.
Our Take: This hour functions as a way for viewers around the world to get to know Matteo Lane if they weren’t already among his many YouTube fans.
Lane says that in his first years in stand-up, “I had to come out every single night” as gay every single night just to make sure audiences didn’t have to make assumptions about him; and even now that he’s becoming more recognizable, he still winds up taking a new gig in a place like Phoenix where the customers in the front row will surprise him with their attitude.
As for Lane’s attitude, you might at first think of him as a gossip, but as he explains later in the hour: “If I have a joke about someone they should know about it.”
That’s certainly true for Lane’s husband or his friends, but I’m not sure he needed to check in with Oprah to recount the time he saw her outside an Italian restaurant.
Lane quickly retracts a zinger he scores about witnessing one particular Mariah Carey concert at Madison Square Garden, but he’s not as gun-shy about sharing his feelings regarding one of her Christmas shows almost a decade ago where both her guest duet and the fans sitting next to him surprised and shocked him.
Ultimately, it’s a different celebrity encounter that tells us the most about Lane. While in Vegas for a gig, the casino hooked him up with a meet-and-greet with Katy Perry. Light hijinks and awkward banter ensued. Enough to where Lane acknowledged afterward, “I have it on video, I should post that,” but added a simple yet observation for all us to take home: Your friends should make fun of you, not to make you feel small, but to keep you humble.
It’s clear that Lane’s humility is still intact as he continues to reach bigger and bigger audiences.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Lane compares his comedy to catching up with friends over brunch, and if that seems a bit much, you can point to the sketches with his funny friends backstage that bookend his stand-up hour to see just how down-to-earth and fun that might be. Stick through the credits to discover just how loose he keeps it.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
English (US)