Joe Rogan didn’t get to be a multimillionaire podcast host by playing it safe. So it will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that his new Netflix standup special, Joe Rogan: Burn the Boats, is … well, whatever the opposite of a safe space is.
Taped live at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, a couple hours’ drive from Rogan’s home in Austin, Texas, his new Netflix comedy special is largely a freewheeling extension of his top-rated podcast (which, by the way, celebrates its 15th anniversary this year). Rogan’s routine careens from Covid to Pizzagate to Hillary Clinton and also finds him sharing his thoughts on gay people and on how he believes Texas to be “the land of the free.” At one point, he also insists to the audience — which roared with laughter throughout — that he thinks most people generally want to live life as a “good person.”
Opined one Redditor in the days leading up to the special’s Netflix debut this weekend: “Can’t wait to see him MURDER with jokes about a the Covid vaccine and Anthony Fauci. He’s been banging that sword and sharpening it like a true samurai for literally years.”
So, yeah, it’s that kind of special. But, at the same time, it’s nothing to be up in arms about. You can’t really go to the circus and then get offended when you see the elephants. Joe Rogan: Burn the Boats did its job for the viewers it was intended for, because it’s the #1 TV title on the streaming giant in the US as of this writing — surpassing everything from the new Unsolved Mysteries season to the Simone Biles: Rising docuseries, and even the new YA crime drama A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (which is at #2).
“I am very invested in aliens being real,” Rogan says at one point during his Netflix special.
“I think the dumbest argument that aliens aren’t real is when they go, ‘If aliens are real why don’t they just land on the White House lawn?’ When you go fishing, do you check in with the president of the lake? No, you just trick those idiots with fake food and then you pull ‘em out by their lips and take pictures of ‘em, and drop ‘em back off in the water … just like the aliens do to us!”
Burn the Boats is the seventh standup comedy special of Rogan’s career, which includes two others for Netflix — Joe Rogan: Strange Times and Joe Rogan: Triggered. In addition to his standup comedy, he also hosts The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and is a commentator for the UFC.
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