The New Lonely Island Special Is an Absurd Ode to Never Growing Up
The lives of celebrity athletes are a rich wellspring for comedy and tragedy alike: the merciless brevity of their time in the spotlight, the irrelevance of their skill set in other aspects of life, the humiliating side effects of success. In mockumentaries for HBO over the last five years, Andy Samberg has parodied the smug elegance of tennis championships (7 Days in Hell) and the insanity of professional cycling (Tour de Pharmacy), both to excellent if slightly puzzling effect. There are some similarities between athletes and comedians—namely, that it’s hard to know where to go next. Comedians can demand to be taken seriously—as an actor, a writer, a seen-it-all purveyor of hard truths—but many of them fade away once their moment has passed. As for musical comedians, well, no one wants to hear three middle-aged dudes screaming about their dicks set to the sound of late-2000s hip-hop beats.
Despite this, Samberg and his pals in the Lonely Island (Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone) have shown real staying power. It helps that they’ve stayed active behind the scenes, with production credits on recent shows like “Pen15” and “I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson.” When they do re-emerge as a group, their material is often faced with the very question of relevance. Their last major work was the 2016 feature film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a mockumentary about the sad trajectory of a boy band member gone solo (played by Samberg). That the movie was a box office flop—albeit one with a growing cult audience—just makes its punchlines land even harder. “How come I’m not having a moment?” Samberg asked in a pivotal scene. “You’ve had tons of moments,” his manager responds, as if knowing how far he’s fallen makes the crash landing any better.
In a new 30-minute Netflix special titled The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, the trio continues their line of questioning, in the form of a fictional rap album made by late-’80s baseball stars Jose Canseco (Samberg) and Mark McGwire (Schaffer). It plays like an absurd cautionary tale on stardom, merging the non-sequitur charm of Samberg’s HBO specials with the big budget splash of Popstar. Mimicking the scope of cinematic visual albums like Beyoncé’s Lemonade, the “visual poem” is rife with the players’ interior monologues: “What do we ask of our heroes?” “What is the price of fame?” “Where will we hide from the sun when all the trees are dead?” Interspersed within songs about bench pressing women and partying in an IHOP parking lot, the joke is often found in the pathetic silences they receive from everyone around them. No one cares what you think, the story seems to go, as long as the hits keep coming.
Speaking of hits, the songs themselves are punchy and lighthearted and well-suited to a low-stakes surprise drop such as this. We’re almost a decade removed from Incredibad and Turtleneck & Chain, the Lonely Island albums that featured honest-to-god charting singles (“I Just Had Sex,” “I’m on a Boat”) and timely collaborations with big stars. Nowadays, the group keeps a smaller circle. Samberg and Schaffer take the lead on pretty much all of the songs, lending only a devilish funk anthem about male objectification to the sisters of Haim (“IHOP Parking Lot”) and a soaring hook about loungewear to Sia (“Oakland Nights”). As with Popstar, whose soundtrack seemed to be inspired by a brainstorming session for the worst ideas possible for pop singles, the tight focus keeps things cohesive and fun. Turns from Jenny Slate, Maya Rudolph, and Sterling K. Brown only add to the sense that everyone involved is having a blast.
The members of the Lonely Island met in junior high in Berkley, California, during the time when McGwire and Canseco—both Oakland A’s players—were inescapable pop culture figures. While their portrayal is filled with loving nods and references to the late ’80s and early ’90s, the trio seems more interested in using the players as archetypes than providing any sort of nostalgic exploration. You don’t need to be familiar with, or even care about, any particular team to follow the story; its metaphors are as instant and universal as, say, “Jizz in My Pants.” “Where is the limit? There are no limits,” they shout in the pump-up anthem “Focused AF.” “And what is the goal? To make dad love me!”
As with most of the Lonely Island’s material, it’s best not to dig too deep. Do the dad jokes need to return as an entire song about avoiding therapy? Probably not. Could the story use a slightly more elaborate arc to foreground all the jokes about ball shrinkage and unrequited horniness? Almost definitely. And after a final verse that’s literally comprised of puns about the names of various baseball teams, the film doesn’t so much end as sputter out in exhaustion—the elusive moment when riffing turns into sighing and checking the time. The whole thing is ridiculous and kind of shameless and unsure how to move on, and that’s exactly the point. “I can’t stop laughing. Loved it,” the real Jose Canseco responded—publicly and almost immediately—in a tweet. “If you want to do a follow up video, contact my manager Morgan: 7023743735.”
Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
