The basic premise behind a roast is that you have a guest of honor, in this case, rapper and reality-TV star Flavor Flav. He is honored by means of insults, by both close friends and well-known comedians. But it isn't quite that simple, since each of the roasters is fair game as well. So basically, you have a Roastmaster (in this case, comedian Katt Williams) who introduces each of the people and makes small jabs at them. Each comedian steps up and talks about the other roasters and finally the main person before they sit down. Once everyone has had their chance to take a shot at everyone else, the guest of honor (Flav) gets up and tries his own hand at some comedy... I'll just say, that it's a good thing he didn't try to start his career as a comedian.
Comedy Central put together a pretty good cast of roasters for this event. Besides Katt Williams, you also get to hear from Jimmy Kimmel, Sommore, Snoop Dogg, Jeff Ross, Ice T, Greg Giraldo, Brigitte Nielsen, Patton Oswalt, Carrot Top and Lisa Lampanelli. This is a good mix between high profile comedians and people who know Flavor Flav on a more personal level, and when the jokes start flying, you can definitely tell which are which. The comedians who might not know Flav in real life (Kimmel, Ross, Oswalt) tend to make fun of the show Flavor of Love, the number of kids he has or his very dark skin, while those that have known him the longest (Ice T, Williams, Nielsen, Snoop) tend to tell anecdotes. Of course, the real fun is when the roasters turn on each other.
While this site's demographic keeps me from repeating many of the jokes said on this very uncensored DVD, I'll try to give a rough rundown without being explicit. For the most part, if Ice T was mentioned, it was a jab about his age. Giraldo claimed Ice T was so old, that he used the money from his first record album to buy his freedom, while Snoop Dog said he wanted to listen to some of T's work on the way in, but he didn't have a cassette player.
Though one of the funniest moments in the show was Carrot Top's reaction to the other roaster's jabs at him. While everyone else was able to shake off the jibes, Carrot Top was visibly upset when it was his turn at the podium and it really messed up the timing of his jokes. His props, on the other hand, were of typical Carrot Top quality. They included everything from a chain with a grandfather clock on it for Flav, to a bong with mirrors for Snoop, and then he pulled out Flavor Flav's first video... which Carrot Top thinks is him robbing a store.
Personally, I felt like the best acts of the show were Snoop, who came out with a solid rhyme that put the other roasters to shame, and a personal favorite Lisa Lampanelli who, according to Williams, has "screwed more black men than Equifax." But Lampanelli retaliated against that statement by calling Williams "Mr. Hanky." She also talked about Ice T in Law and Order: SVU.
There were also various jabs at the Flavor of Love girls who were in the audience, and these always led to what must have been censored gestures when the special aired on TV.
There are a few special features on The Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav. The only ones that really interested me were the post and pre-show interviews with all of the comedians and the red-carpet interviews. The other two, Flavor-Cam and a tour of Flav's trailer were very uninteresting and not really worth a lot of time.
Not being a big fan of Flavor, I wasn't sure how I would like this DVD, but as it turns out, whether you like him or not, you should have fun watching the different comedians and friends make fun of him, and quite frankly, Flavor's part in the overall special is minimal. Sure he is the reason this particular group of people are together, but the focus is really the roasters not the roasted. I can't say this is for everyone, the language alone makes that clear... let's just say if this was rated, it would easily get an R.
