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Adult Swim’s new special Soft Focus with Jena Friedman is, and I can’t stress this enough, a pure delight. A live-action special that explores hard issues with a light touch, the 17-minute satirical comedy, which is now available to stream on Adult Swim, finds a way to delicately extract humor from a variety of sensitive issues like campus rape and human cannibalism. Created by and starring comedian Jena Friedman, the innovative humor is reminiscent of a segment you might see on The Daily Show, which makes sense considering Friedman used to work as a producer on the Comedy Central series from 2012-2015.
The entire special is a must-see trove of hilarity, but the section we’re going to highlight is Friedman’s deadpan interview with Gilberto Valle III aka the “Cannibal Cop.” For the uninitiated, Valle is a former NYPD officer who gained notoriety after being accused of conspiracy to kidnap, cook, and eat a number of female victims, including his wife, based on postings to a fetish site. Friedman’s candid, matter-of-fact approach to interviewing Valle about the immensely bizarre topic only amplifies the humor. The comedian treats the whole conversation like she’s casually chatting with Cole Sprouse about Riverdale spoilers. It’s just so well done, and Friedman’s approach elicits an array of literal laugh out loud moments. There’s just something inherently funny about no-selling the peculiarity of a subject, which is why it’s so amusing to watch Friedman ask the following questions with a straight face:
- “How do you distinguish between somebody plotting to cook people for fun and someone plotting to cook people for business?”
- “What advice would you give someone who was busted by their wife for planning to eat her and her friends on a dark fetish website?”
- “You’re never gonna eat women?”
- “Are you dating again?”
The funniest part of the interview is Friedman’s response to the Cannibal Cop wondering out loud why this whole weird situation happened to him.
After the interview, it’s revealed that Valle is actually on a dating show titled “Meet Your Match” as three bachelorettes compete to win a date with the Cannibal Cop.
Adult Swim continues to cement itself as the home of absurd, alternative comedy. If you’re a fan of previous specials like Joe Pera Helps You Find The Perfect Christmas Tree, Too Many Cooks, or Adam Scott’s sensational Greatest Event in Television History series, you’ll absolutely enjoy Soft Focus with Jena Friedman.
