Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang had a popular podcast (“Las Culturistas”) before to Yang’s breakthrough on Saturday Night Live. Where is the attention for Rogers, though? Perhaps putting on his own Christmas musical spectacular will help.
Matt Rogers has experienced a remarkable year in 2022.
After a few modest breakthroughs in 2020-2021 (co-hosting Gayme Show for Quibi/Roku, hosting Haute Dog for HBO Max, and voicing/writing on Q-Force for Netflix), Rogers eventually broke out in style this year with parts in Fire Island and I Love That For You on Hulu and Showtime, respectively. Already established on Showtime, he now stars in his own Christmas variety hour, complete with musical numbers and offstage skits. Yang makes an important cameo appearance, while Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson (The Opposition with Jordan Klepper) join Rogers and pianist/co-writer Henry Koperski for a song.
Catherine Cohen’s Netflix musical was also filmed in Joe’s Pub, with Koperski collaborating on the piano.
Memorable Jokes: A series of skits featuring “Matt Rogers” as he cravenly wants to be proclaimed the new prince of Christmas by none other than Mariah Carey interrupt the musical performances. Can his PR team get Carey’s participation? Will an unexpected visit to a 10-year-old classroom aid his cause? The answers might not shock you.
However, the songs make the musical.
Rogers offers the title number as a challenge for viewers to question passersby, only to show that his knowledge of the holiday is comparable to “Bluto” from Animal House by John Belushi.
Even the songs in which he imagines Christmas from the perspective of Mrs. Claus or Martha May Whovier, as performed by Christine Baranski in Jim Carrey’s rendition of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, are blatantly sexist.
The song starring Sharp and Jackson is similarly NSFW, pondering how to respond to micro-aggressive enquiries from family members regarding their sexual life as homosexual men.
What function does Rogers have in comedy or society if his podcast best friend Yang is the famous homosexual and Billy Eichner is already Mariah’s “Christmas gay”?
Rogers attempts to demolish and criticize the Christmas industrial retail complex while also embedding himself firmly into its firmament throughout this hour-long performance. Every time he effectively wonders why we haven’t properly honored or even acknowledged Mrs. Claus (singing his points straight to camera), he’s grinning or slinking around while singing seductive thirst traps.
He desires to have it both ways, so to speak. Rogers succeeds despite frequently switching between romantic and mocking tones, sometimes within the same piece. He can make us feel for him and his collaborator, Koperski, by addressing “the elephant in the room,” which was their two-and-a-half-year relationship, and then performing a song about a fictitious desire for a date to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree and any number of NBC employees who may be entering or exiting the building. And when he sheds tears before his climax, thanking Koperski for his significant part in helping Rogers to realize his dream of taping a special at Joe’s Pub, we absolutely believe his sincerity. Only to learn that he is simply but really humorous about the entire event. Regardless of the hole or pole location,
Our Request: STREAM IT. This hour will probably place Rogers on Santa’s Naughty List, but at least he’s on it now!
Prior to working for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic, Sean L. McCarthy covered humor for traditional publications. Based in New York City, but willing to travel anywhere for scoops of ice cream or news. In addition, he tweets as @thecomicscomic and produces podcasts with comedians explaining their origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.