Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Rob Delaney: Jackie’ On Amazon Prime, From Another American Werewolf In London

Rob Delaney and his wife have three sons. So who is this Jackie? She’s a bearded dragon, just like her proud papa, but you’ll only learn more about that if you watch the full hour of Delaney’s first stand-up comedy special on Amazon Prime.

ROB DELANEY: JACKIE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Delaney was just another unknown aspiring comedian in Los Angeles a decade ago when he discovered Twitter, and then Twitter discovered him. He amassed an audience of more than a million with his mostly raunchy thoughts, but only found success on the telly after he and his family moved to England, where Delaney and Sharon Horgan co-created, wrote and starred in a beloved comedy series, Catastrophe, which aired four seasons, available here in America thanks to Amazon Prime.

Even if you haven’t watched Catastrophe yet (and you should, you should!), you may recognize this burly chiseled man from his memorable supporting roles on the big-screen in blockbusters Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.

But you likely have never seen Delaney tell jokes for more than a minute or two in a row outside of social media. Until now.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: A delightfully raunchy comedian who pokes fun at how he parents his kids. Who does this Delaney think he is, Louis C.K.? Yes and no.

Memorable Jokes: If you follow Delaney on Twitter now, you’ll know that he loves the British health care system, and he certainly makes the case for it here a bit that begins with this explanation: “Because in America, if you get sick, even if you have good private, “good” private insurance, you still have to take your credit cards, and your mom’s credit cards and your neighbor’s credit cards, and melt them down, and fashion them into a kayak that you paddle into the hospital and beg them to help you.”

And when his wife became pregnant for the fourth time, they decided to go with a home birth, and he gladly describes all the steps involved in that, including deciding whether their young sons will watch or take part in it at all.

He’s also not sad about being an ocean away from Donald J. Trump. Delaney jokes about knowing just how much the president and his doctor lied about the president’s health because Delaney himself was the exact height and weight that Trump supposedly also was at the time. Not only does Delaney not want to watch the president on TV any longer, he says if he did, he fantasizes about watching Trump suffer a fatal aneurysm on live TV, with his children flailing about to save him. The London audience gives him an applause break, Delaney concedes: “I love that premise. I do. I want that.”

He later takes on another already tarnished institution in comedian Bill Cosby, confiding to us that as a young comedian, Delaney (as many millions of others) idolized Cos, and leapt at the chance to meet him backstage before a show. In hindsight, Delaney realizes in the retelling of a creepy confrontation that it wasn’t an isolated incident.

Our Take: On Catastrophe, Delaney played a husband and father who wanted to do the right thing but sometimes struggled with his own character defects in the process. In real-life, and onstage, Delaney likewise has no qualms about sharing his defects.

He’s the guy who’ll unknowingly wear shirts onstage with holes in the armpits (not this time, tho).

He’s the guy who’ll spot a flasher in the bushes while jogging, then contemplate self-deprecatingly about his own penis for several minutes, and then worry about warning others and scaring them doubly in the process.

He’s the guy who’ll recount the story of his drunk-driving accident before he got sober 17 years ago, and how it made him appreciate psychiatric hospitals, look forward to nursing homes, and in between, gladly answer your questions about how he coped with two broken arms and two sewn-up legs confined to a wheelchair in jail.

He’ll joke about what he’d do with a sex robot, while also admitting he’d rather have no libido at all.

And after encountering a bigoted taxi driver in Cornwall, Delaney also will confront his own subtle wiring for prejudice, such as wondering why it matters so much to him that strangers match up to his expectations of them. “Just because I dress like a gas station attendant, why can’t he have a little flair and be happy?! Why do I f—ing care? But I do.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Delaney is an engaging storyteller, even with that potty mouth of his. And you’ll want to hear all about Jackie, Delaney’s bearded dragon, and what happens to her when she escapes her comfort zone. Because there’s something in there we can all learn from.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Rob Delaney: Jackie on Amazon Prime Video