Perhaps it's me, but this wasn't really very funny at all. Scratch that, I know it's me.

Rickey Smiley is a television host, radio personality, stand up comedian and actor best known for doing prank phone calls. He's got a fairly lengthy career with lots of notable performances which means that there have to be people who find him funny. In fact, this special, Open Casket Sharp, was filmed in front of a whole theater full of people who were practically rolling in the aisles in fits of laughter. Whereas I barely cracked a smile.

All comedy requires a certain level of familiarity. A movie like Office Space works for people who have worked as a corporate drone or even in the service industry, but for people who've never been there the movie can be fairly dull. And so it is expected that sometimes you simply won't "get" a comedian's material. A lot of that comes into play here as Smiley's comedy is rooted in a particular place. He is a black american who tells stories that are relatable to by black americans. As a white suburban fellow, I understand his jokes about a crazy grandma and bathing in dish soap instead of bubble bath, but it doesn't resonate because it isn't my experience.

However, half of Rickey's act goes a step further. It isn't merely telling jokes from a certain perspective or world view. Plenty of his material is simply call backs to things his audience is likely to have also heard. Rather than tell a joke, he alludes to the joke and invites the audience to recall the punchline, which he repeats, and they all laugh. Only, I don't know the joke, and so the punchline isn't funny to me, and I don't laugh. He opens the show by mimicing what I assume is a real person from a real event. A member of Master P's band, the bass player, getting into the music and moving center stage when that should be reserved for Master P. Of course, to me, I don't see a bass player getting into the music and grooving center stage to be an issue, though perhaps in some subcultures that would be seen as a slight, to take the spotlight from the star. And then he repeats this, several times through the show, calling back to the call back of the event I'm not familiar with. And I'm not laughing, but the audience in the theater is dying.

I suspect, in the end, I've just suffered through something that just wasn't for me. So I give it an F, because I didn't get it, but if you are a fan of Rickey Smiley, don't let my review stop you. You might find this to be as hilarious as the live audience did.

The DVD contains a couple bonus skits in addition to the main special, but I didn't get them either.