Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Tom Papa: You’re Doing Great!’ On Netflix, Which Literally Reminds Viewers to Netflix and Chill

A decade ago, Tom Papa served as The Marriage Ref on NBC, where he and his comedy friends made light of the squabbling of real-life couples. Fast-forward to 2020, where life seems much more of a struggle for so many Americans, and Papa is here with a lighter touch in his fourth comedy special, and first for Netflix…

TOM PAPA: YOU’RE DOING GREAT!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Even you don’t recognize Papa, there’s a more likely chance you’ve heard him recently, especially if you listen to the radio. Papa is the head writer and regular contributor for Live From Here with Chris Thile, the weekly public radio show that replaced A Prairie Home Companion. He also co-hosts a morning radio show for SiriusXM’s Netflix Is A Joke channel with Fortune Feimster called “What A Joke.” Feimster’s Netflix debut just came out last month, and now it’s Papa’s turn.

While Feimster’s hour was deeply personal, Papa’s keeps the focus of his observational humor on his audience, whom he wants to reassure in this divisive, troubling times. “Calm down. You’re doing great!” he says. “Life isn’t perfect. It never was, and it never will be. We’ve all got stuff to deal with. You’re doing great.”

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Papa’s observational humor feels like an amalgam of contemporaries like Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan, with the suit and the punctuation of punchlines showing influences of Seinfeld (with whom Papa used to tour more regularly before breaking out as his own headliner).

Memorable Jokes: Performing for an audience in Newark, N.J., Papa scores points early by poking fun at neighboring Staten Island, New York. But that’s just a move to earn their trust, and ours, before launching into a series of bits meant to put us at ease about our individual and collective social status.

Papa starts with our physical appearance, whether it’s questioned by fitness and weight-loss programs and their “before and after” photos, or those instant makeover segments on daytime television shows. Either way, their intent and design isn’t so successful, in his opinion. The makeovers target moms who’ll never wear those outfits again in real life nor have the time to replicate their newly-learned hair and makeup. As for the fitness ideals? Papa cracks: “I always like the BEFORE guy, frankly. Yeah, he looks a little chubby. He also looks like he has a box of doughnuts and a lot of friends.” For much of this, Papa blames social media. He didn’t feel so insecure about his lot in life before seeing everyone else seemingly living better lives. Did you?

And he leans into that notion by reminding us the “good old days” weren’t quite as good as people nostalgically remember. Those skinny people were miserable. Hospitals didn’t have advanced medicine or surgical techniques. We didn’t have fashion choices.

His two daughters, by contrast, have so many choices, even at the ice cream parlor, thanks to sample spoons. They run his life in a way he imagines his generation (he’s 51, so Generation X) never could have imagined behaving toward their parents.

Our Take: There’s a bit, excerpted in the trailer, in which Papa imagines waking up one of his daughters in the middle of the night, questioning himself really about whether he’s going to make it. In real life, Papa has made it, with his multiple radio gigs and steady touring schedule. But the bit speaks to the self-doubt that creeps into our thoughts, for which Papa perhaps rightly blames not just social media but also the news.

“You want to feel better about yourself? Turn the news off.”

We might be much better off not watching or listening or seeing the steady stream of arguments and desperate declarations on 24-hour news channels, or the exaggerated heightening of reality of our supposed friends and celebrities on Instagram or Facebook. But then again, who is that we referring to? It’s those of us who have “regular” lives not impacted by politics or policy. It’s those of us who are living truly privileged lives, whatever our gender or skin color, who go to work and live our lives, and for whom, all of the screaming and shouting and puffing of chests makes no material difference, if we stopped to think (or even more to the point, not think) about it.

Papa wants to put those of us at ease. Everything’s going to be OK, because everything is OK, for us.

He suggests readjusting our own expectations out of life, and setting more obtainable goals. For him, it can be trading a life of comedy touring for working in a bagel shop on the Jersey Shore? For you, who knows. Papa winds up doing quite a bit of crowd work with a couple in the front row, learning about their lives and perhaps illustrating this philosophy that everyone really is doing great.

Our Call: STREAM IT. You might not feel inspired to save the world after watching this hour, but you may just save yourself. At least for a little while. As Papa jokes: “You don’t need a five-hour energy drink. You need to lay down once in a while.”

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 Tom Papa: You're Doing Great! on Netflix