Your thoughts on Bill Burr's Latest Special - Walk Your Way Out (Spoilers Probably)

I've been a long time Burr fan. I've seen all his specials 3-4 times, I listen to his podcast, and watch him on talk shows. There was a period when I was definitely just flat out obsessed. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed by his newest special, Walk Your Way Out. Overall, it's his weakest out of the 5 and some of that has to do with overexposure on my part and his.

Issues

• 1st 30 minutes:
  I expect the beginning of any stand-up special to be strong and the weakest part of this special is the 1st 30mins. I had to turn it off and come back another day. If you are a big Burr fan, you've heard all this stuff before, it's old hat. I don't know how I would feel if I hadn't heard it before but it just killed my excitement. 2 years I've been waiting eagerly for this special and it feels like recycled material from the podcast and Conan.

• Fat Shaming:
  I have no problems with any subject in comedy, that's not the problem here. Again, this is old hat for Bill and it's like a quarter of the special and there really isn't a new take. The point is what we've heard out of Billy Red Face for years and years: "No sympathy for you cunts."
  
  
• Delivery:
  Not all of it but a lot of this special leans heavily on his podcast rambling style. Yeah, he's known for his in-your-face confrontational delivery but it approaches parody here. It kinda felt like he was trying to give his fans what he thought they wanted out of him but turned up to 11.
  
  
• Length of the Bits:
  Bill was known for his machine gun like rapid fire punches in his early specials, weaving through topic to topic but he progressively evolved to build on fewer, bigger bits that included more than laughs. He wanted to provided a diverse range of emotions and his last special was the culmination of his evolution as a comedic. His latest takes a few step past it and the bits are way too long. At points, you just want him to move on and the crowd's begging him to.
  
  
• Crowd:
  What is up with this audience? I hate when the crowd is overhyped on specials but they were dead, I felt bad for Bill. He tried to make the best of it.

Final Thoughts

I'm actually glad I stop where I stop on my first sit 'cause when I came back to finish it off, I enjoyed the rest of it. Overall, there are some brilliant moments (like the EDM during the submarine) and the gorilla bit is absolutely top shelf, among his best stuff. Bill Burr needs new topics. I quickly had the same issue with Louis CK couple specials in. Please find a new well. I'm not saying that well is dry, it's that you've gone to it too many times. I hope next time he comes with shorter bits and a tighter delivery. I'm probably done with the podcast and the talk shows to do my part as well.

3/5 freckles

I'll have to check it out, love Bill Burr! Saw him live in Boston after seeing his first HBO stand ups years ago. Was so fun we went back the next night for a second showing. Met, got a signed copy of his stand up CD, and a photo with him.

I'm also a big fan of him. I haven't seen the special yet, but bits I saw promoting it looked like stuff he's done before more or less. Kind of feeling like I may not love it as well but I haven't watched it yet.

I saw him in college at UMass and someone threw up in the theater because they were hammered and he went on and did all these jokes about it on spot. It was the funniest show I have seen and I have seen a decent number of top level comedians.

Really I think it's hard to keep coming up with new material like he has to and I give him slack. If he was just providing me the entertainment he does with his podcast and appearances on other shows he is still one of the funniest guys out there. I don't love everything he does (I have to skip through a lot of sports stuff) but he gives me a lot of free entertainment.

It also must be odd to do a podcast alone like he does and then be writing and stuff at the same time. For him those two must bleed together. It's easy to see how that happens. It's a fair criticism for you to make but I just get where it comes from. It's incredibly hard to do a one person radio show or podcast at all and nevermind do such a good one. And as far as Conan goes, they set up comedians and that's nothing new.

I love Bill Burr. I haven't had a chance to check this out but I hope to soon. I have a bucket list of comedians I want to see live: I get to see Chappelle live on Saturday and I hope to see Burr live one day too. I don't regularly listen to Burr's podcast and I don't have TV to see his late night appearances so he's not too overexposed for me.

I didn't even know he had a new special out.

I still haven't even seen "I'm Sorry You Feel That Way". I'll always catch a Bill Burr show when he performs in Boston, so I don't feel like I'm missing a whole lot by nit watching the specials right away. Plus, he still absolutely kills live, doesn't always translate to just watching the special on the couch or something like that.

The first time I heard of Bill Burr was a few days ago when he was on Conan:

And now there's a thread on here about him, timing!

@wynnduffy: this is his best bit on Conan

I am a Bill Burr fan, listen to his podcast every week and enjoy watching him on talk shows and other podcasts like JRE. After watching the special, I didn't think this was the strongest one he has done. There were some parts of it that dragged on for far too long and I also think it was mistake to do this special in Nashville where some of the jokes weren't going to land. I think he should have done it back in is hometown Boston where his own audience would have been.

The only issue with that special was the pacing. I personally love the awkward moments when a joke doesn't land. It was great that they included that in the edit.

Some bits definitely benefited from being dragged out at least for me. The part where he has to switch from Sports analogies to music analogies had me losing it.

Overall I think it is worth anyone's time in checking out. I'd also recommend Neal Brennan's 3 Mics special if your into stand up which came out recently.

I could definitely get a sense he was going for the "dig yourself into a hole only to crawl your way out" style again, I just didn't think the material was as divisive or interesting as in previous specials.

Definitely agree here, it seemed as though he and the audience were on a different wavelength. They seemed to lie in waiting for a punch line and not listen to what he was getting at with his rant. Then when his rant would sort of fizzle out because the audience wouldnt give him anything to play with, you'd just get an awkward half-hearted applause break. On previous specials you would get an obvious recoiling from the audience, Burr would acknowledge it and feed off of it which would only make the payoff later more cathartic and hilarious. This time it was like that give and take wasn't there.

And to @liquiddragon's point that he needs a new well I tend to agree. But it could also be the issue that Louie was facing when you crank out a special every year. Burr just had a baby and that coupled with his animated show most likely didn't have the time to hone new material on the road. Hopefully he takes a couple years between this and his next one.

You said "parity" and I think you meant "parody"

I had the exact same thoughts as the OP. He tries to paint too long of a story, the home invasion one on the last special was good but it dragged, it looks like he didn't learn anything from then.

@rickyyo: That part when he switched from sports to the music analogy was really good. I been thinking about checking out that Neil Brennan special but I don't know why, he comes off as a real pompous dude. The show's good though?

@saladbone: According to him, talking on the Joe Rogan podcast the day before yesterday, he wanted to shoot 6 month earlier so apparently it's overcooked.

@dt9k: Yup.

I thought it was Intense, loved it. Almost induced a panic attack. Never seen anything like it.

I love Bill Burr hes my favorite comic going atm.

Haven't seen the special yet.

I enjoyed it overall. Some stories had me in tears, like his other specials. A few moments dragged on for a bit too long and the payoff for a couple of the jokes weren't as satisfying as I'd have liked.

@toadstool: A panic attack? Man, did you watch it on mushrooms or something?

Dude gets way too angry and self righteous to actually be funny. At least, that has been my experience with most of his work.

A big fan myself, watched it, the gorilla long bit was brilliant but I hardly laugh throughout the show.

I think his disposition on this and the podcast has been weird lately. He seems like he's angry about something at all time.

The audience threw him off I think. I watched this tonight. The audience just wasn't into his comedy.

I saw him in Seattle last year. His set was a little different than this one; I guess he threw some stuff out. Overall I agree with you. I don't have a problem with the fat shaming stuff, since that's mostly from his podcast, I'm fine with seeing it in stand up form. The population stuff was funny, but he didn't add enough to it to make it feel like it deserved to be retread.

The most disappointing part, and you touched on this, is the rambling style he did. Bill has always had that to a degree, but it felt like more than any special before it, he was rambling without a destination. It never felt like it was adding up to much.

He was amazing live, I was crying laughing for most of the show, but I agree this special was disappointing. I will say, I think his next special will be a turning point for his comedy. Now that he's a dad I can see a whole new perspective open for him that will hopefully affect his comedy for the better.

I liked it. I like just about everything Bill Burr though. I did think some of his bits dragged on a bit, like the Hitler vs Stalin thing. I think the first half was stronger than the last half.

But he was spot-fucking-on about fat shaming. People putting their issues to blame on others always bothered me. I'm all for not actively shaming people of course, but to suggest I have to appreciate every single person the exact same is ludicrous. Promoting overweight body-images as if they are desirable is both not true and unhealthy. It reminds me of that South Park episode where they killed off 'Reality'.

When it comes to being overweight, I think people have a weight problem when their doctor tells them that they do. You can't really argue with that, because it's about health. Anything else is too subjective, IMO.

As for the special itself, I really liked it. It's probably Bill Burr's weakest special, but that's just because what came before it was so strong. His Hitler vs Stalin thing reminded me of Eddie Izzard's material from the same subject, during his Dress to Kill special, which might be my favorite comedy special of all time. Izzard spent far less time on Stalin, but covered a lot more world history.

There were a lot of really good moments, though. On the Giant Bomb scale, I'd still give it four stars.

@spaceinsomniac: To be clear, I'm not saying you should fat shame. But the point it was addressing, at least for me, was the notion that you have the 'right' to receive as much (romantic, erotic) attention as people who work to look good if you are noticeably overweight. Beyond there being several reasons to not be attracted to someone like that, it should not be my responsibility to pretend like I am. Nowadays, even if you do it in the most polite way possible, you get accused of fat shaming if you reject someone because you're not into it. That's just crazy and weirdly entitled.

@rickyyo: dude, I saw Neal Brennan's special. I loved it. It was amazing. Really funny and so moving.

@liquiddragon: I have the same problem with most comedians when I listen to their podcasts frequently. Not my favorite burr special by a long shot, but still got a few yuks out.

Definitely didn't have the perfect pacing that I've loved about all Burr's previous specials, and sometimes I felt like he was trying to hard to push buttons.

I enjoyed it, definitely some super funny bits but more lulls than I expect from ol' Billy Rednuts.