Dennis Miller: The HBO Specials

I love stand-up comedy. Ever since I was a kid, I was amazed by the fact that a person can hold an audience’s attention for over an hour, just by standing in front of them and saying funny things. It’s so pure.
One of my favorite comedians, from as far back as I care to remember, is Dennis Miller. His sardonic outlook and smug delivery grabbed me from the beginning. For years, I would remember back to the early days of Comedy Central, when they would get a lot of their stand-up content from HBO. As such, they would re-air Miller’s various HBO specials. I never recorded them, but remembered a few jokes here and there that always made me laugh.
Imagine my excitement when it was announced that HBO would be putting out all seven of Miller’s specials in a three-disc set. I was excited to go back and re-live those old specials, having already seen the two most recent.
On a more academic level, I was excited to watch Miller’s outlook change over the course of twenty years from a liberal smart-ass to a conservative wise-ass. It’s been pretty widely acknowledged that Miller, who now contributes regularly to various Fox News programs, had a severe change of political heart after the September 11th attacks.
What’s fascinating, however, is that, after watching all seven specials in chronological order, it’s obvious that his ideological shift started years before that fateful day in 2001.
Watching Miller’s first three specials is a joy. His acid-tongued treatment of all topics on the political spectrum- from Bill Clinton to the NRA- is edgy and, in some cases, daring. Though a fairly liberal guy in 1992, he approaches Clinton with trepidation in a time when many others thought he was the second coming. Miller has a great deal of energy; he clearly loves what he is doing.
Then comes 1996’s “Citizen Arcane.”
Here, we see a different Dennis Miller. He’s a little more laconic. More than that, he seems genuinely tired. He is, of course, still very funny, but his observations seem to come from a place of exasperation; as if he looked at the world around him and just threw up his hands. Several times during the special, Miller discusses the various criminals we all hear about; from corporate criminals to child murderers. The dark, confusing complexity of the world seems to have broken him. At one point, Miller mentions that he’s not an idealist anymore; now he just figures he should try to take care of the people he loves and stop trying to change the world.
If the pain and suffering of the world drove Miller to be a somewhat sad isolationist, the horror of 9/11 turned him into a pissed off reactionary, and his comedy reflects this. His eagerness to destroy those that attacked us indicates the emotional reaction of a person deeply wounded.
The evolution of Dennis Miller and his comedy is fascinating to watch. The HBO specials are definitely worth watching, not only for the consistently funny material, but as a document of an intelligent, sensitive man’s reaction to the world around him.