It was interesting to see even Louis a little nervous on stage. He was a little geeked up to be there, so his timing was a little off. But he was funny and you can tell his material would even be more hilarious in a nightclub where he's comfortable and relaxed and the crowd is more receptive (and that he would go deeper and darker with that shit in a different setting). You could even see him flinch for the punch a little bit, which he usually doesn't ever do because he usually has the shrug my shoulders, don't give a fuck attitude. You could see the lessons he's talked about learning from the censors on Conan about saying outrageous stuff but getting away with it on network television if you say it with the right cutesy mischevious smile and tone. I think he even touched on that on last week's Louie episode with the young open micer he told to use a weird voice to say the creepy crap the kid was saying.

I think the problem some of us have is that we heard him coming up on O&A, a setting in which he was relaxed in a very aggressive, macho Tough Crowd setting on O&A with other up and coming beasts like Norton, Anthony, Patrice, Burr, Dipaolo, Colin, etc. All they knew was that Howard got his fame and fortune by being an outrageous SOB on radio, so they were all gonna do the same. So we got used to him saying the kind of shit you say when your career and marriage ain't working out and all you got is a great standup career and a few radio spots on a show in which one of your good friends is a third mic. So we hold him to that standard in which he was competing with his peers at a time of his life in which he didn't have much to lose, in which he was likely much more bitter about his career and personal life. And we seem intolerant of the reality that he may change his material, tone, perspective in different forums. On his tv show, he's gonna be more reflective and thoughtful. On stage, he's gonna be at his best. On network television spots, he's gonna be more watered down. On radio, he was gonna be at his most aggressive. I guess he's not as aggressive on radio as he once was. Part of that is that the radio show itself has changed. But a big part of that is that his status has changed. He's there to be interviewed now more than to hang and say and do crazy shit. If you heard Eddie Murphy in the early 80s on a black radio station, that's not gonna be the same Eddie Murphy who appears on that same radio show in the late 80s. He's much more likely to have his ass kissed and much less likely to risk it all by kicking ass on a dopey radio show he doesn't get paid to appear on. Look at Chappelle when he's trying out to be Howard's third mic in the early 00s. That's not the same Chappelle Howard would be talking to 5 years later. The dynamic would have changed.