Dane Cook certainly has a potty mouth. But f***, was he funny.

Performing the first show on his tour titled ‘I Did My Best’ Tuesday night at the Oncenter Complex, Cook was offensive, sexist, vulgar and downright hilarious.

Opening acts for Cook were Chris Newborn, Ben Glee and Al Delbene. With their sarcasm and candidness, it seemed entirely possible that the opening acts would be more entertaining than the main event itself.

Newborn took the stage first, warming up the audience with witty one-liners.

‘I’ve always thought it’d be funny to send animal crackers to PETA,’ Newborn said.

Newborn moved on to more controversial content, increasing the audience’s laughter with each imagined scenario. Thanks to his quick punch lines and hilarious anecdotes, he was the funniest of the openers. At one point, he talked about singing about nun rape to the melody of a Justin Bieber song.

‘Next time you think of Justin Bieber, you’ll think of nun rape,’ Newborn said.

Up next, Glee vented his frustrated affection for ‘girly’ drinks. ‘How did men screw up so badly that we can’t publicly enjoy delicious drinks?’ Glee said. ‘Everyone loves anything strawberry-flavored.’

Delbene, who rounded out the openers, revealed the eventual difficulties of potty training his uncircumcised son. ‘When I’m done, I just put it away —you? I don’t know what the f*** you have to do.’

While the Oncenter was roughly three-quarters full, Cook’s strut onto the stage made it sound like a packed Madison Square Garden.

Often criticized for being too loud and obnoxious during his acts, relying on dictation for the majority of his jokes, Cook maintained a fairly level voice. Giving a surprisingly hilarious performance, he placed a stronger emphasis on the actual jokes than the delivery.

Focusing his act on how bizarre his recent months have been, Cook began with expressing his love for crime shows. His new favorite program, ‘Disappeared,’ recently aired an episode about a girl who went missing for three and a half years. Cook described how in one scene, the camera cut to her sobbing best friend, the last one to see her alive. ‘We just came from the Dane Cook concert,’ she cried.

‘I rewound that thing like 40 f***ing times,’ Cook said. He said this incident made him wonder if he blacks out after shows and then murders his fans.

Though the joke was funny at first, Cook carried it for far too long. He sidetracked too much, questioning if the episode was a sign that his destiny was to save this girl. And what would happen if he did.

The joke kept going. And what if they got married? And what if they had a baby? And what if that baby went missing? And what if you could put a GPS in your baby, and then your baby goes missing, but you can chase the kidnapper down the highway? But what if technology fails? Like when you try to TiVo ‘Glee,’ but the television records ‘Antique Roadshow’ instead. The tangent dragged on, eventually ending with a confusing joke about a baby bomb.

‘Let’s reel it back in,’ he said. With the audience laughing, he circled back around to his story about crime shows, introducing his theory on how to commit the perfect crime.

Cook said that in a crime show, it’s impossible to stab someone to death.

‘The universe will never let you hide the knife,’ he said.

Cook explained that even if you wrapped the knife up and threw it in the deep end of the ocean, the universe would make it land on some amateur scuba diver’s head.

‘But I’ve figured it out,’ Cook said. His first step: Stab the victim. The second: Wipe the knife. Crime shows always unveil a knife dripping with blood.

‘But we’re classy,’ he said, to roaring laughter. ‘Syracuse, we’re gonna ShamWow that b****.’

Cook’s final step: Invite yourself to your neighbor’s house for a friendly visit. Once there, discreetly slip the knife into his or her knife drawer. Because, he said, no one will ever call up the police to report a strange knife in his or her knife drawer.

However, no other crime topped his explanation of how to mug someone and get away with it.

Wear a necklace of dildos.

When you approach your victim, ‘force one dildo into their mouth, perhaps another into their ear, and make them do a dance,’ Cook said. He elaborated that no one will ever admit to being subjected to such an experience.

Continuing stories of his recent past, Cook didn’t let up on the provocative comments. He recounted a breakup from his girlfriend of five years.

‘Movies make girls out to be so sappy in breakups. You wear sweatpants, have your hair in that pineapple mess, Meg Ryan comes over to talk about feelings,’ he said. ‘But girls are actually awesome in breakups.’

He shared how after their final fight was over, he stopped her before she left. Not wanting to end things on such a negative note, he asked her to wait.

‘What, f***face?’ she asked.

Annoyed but determined to keep the relationship intact, he told her how they’ve shared five years together, how many great moments they’ve had, and how he really hopes she has a wonderful, happy life.

‘I’m gonna go f*** black dudes,’ she said.

‘It was so unexpected, I just said, ‘Yeah, maybe I’ll go f*** black dudes, too,” Cook said.

Finally, he told of his special encounter with a well-known porn star. Upon arriving at his house, she bashfully expressed how big of a fan she was, how she owned all of his CDs and how ‘you make me laugh all the time.’ Laughing, Cook explained how he responded: ‘Oh, well, you make me c** all the time.’  

Just when the show seemed like it was over, Cook threw a curve ball at the audience. He explained how he was asked to speak at the memorial of a guy who, for 10 years, wrote Cook hate mail about how he sucked at everything he ever did.

Announcing he was going to ‘do something special,’ Cook invited Delbene back up onstage for some giddy sing-a-longs. The two joked around like old frat brothers as they explained that they’ve known each other since they were 12 years old.

‘We both wanted to be stand-up comedians,’ Delbene said.

‘And then I made it, so I brought Al along,’ Cook responded.

Leaving with a standing ovation, Cook’s tamed recollections of porn stars, cop shows and dildo necklaces proved he really does know how to be a comedian. No f***ing joke.

letousig@syr.edu

Published on October 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm