On Wednesday night, the very first episode of Hannibal Buress’s very own show aired on Comedy Central. You’d think it would be safe to say he can officially pen a politely generic missive to all his friends and family back home in Chicago and say, in about as many words, “Lookit me. I’ve made it.” Landing an eponymous program on the cable network is a rite of passage to be sure—but passage to what remains the question. So many comedians have trod this road before him, and it’s led them to all sorts of places, some more pleasant than others.
The format of Why? is similar to Chappelle’s Show—Buress does an opening monologue for his studio audience, then introduces a series of prerecorded skits on the video screens, with setups in between. But Buress doesn’t do characters—or at least he didn’t in the premiere—relying instead on the persona he’s perfected doing stand-up as he sets out to answer a series of questions. For instance: Why do people troll online? “Trolls are like roaches,” he says, “except roaches have mothers and I think trolls were spawned out of their own assholes.”
