Late Night with Conan O’Brien: The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog

with Robert Smigel, Conan O’Brien, Christina Aguilera
(Lionsgate)
by Mike Delano

Just a few years ago, people were complaining that Saturday Night Live wasn’t good anymore, when Will Farrell, Norm MacDonald, and Rachel Dratch were all doing hilarious work. Nowadays, the complaining seems justified: The funny moments of the last couple seasons could be condensed into a 60-minute best-of DVD which, ever since the release of the best-of Farrell DVD, we’ve realized is now the only tolerable way to watch SNL.

You don’t have to sift through tons of crap to get to good material from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Not only are his sporadic appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien consistently hilarious and spaced-out enough to avoid overexposure, but Robert Smigel, Triumph’s creator, proved with the short-lived TV Funhouse that he’s got funny material to burn.

This best-of collects nearly all of Triumph’s best moments (in Quebec, at a Bon Jovi concert), a good amount of outtakes and even the “I Keed” rap video from his comedy album, a must-see if only for the footage of Ping-Pong panda from TV Funhouse dancing at a house party cutting to a clay-mated “Poop” Daddy doing the Harlem shuffle. Triumph’s in good company here, too, as he’s almost upstaged by Conan’s own Masturbating Bear who, after mocking Star Wars fans awaiting the Episode II premiere, furiously grabs himself. But Triumph is not one without humility, and he even adorns himself in a makeshift toilet so that Don Rickles, the king of insult comedy, can poop on him.
(www.lionsgatefilms.com)