Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson Uncensored!

We’re going talk about her tits, ass, sex video, blow-job. What else is there?
— Dennis Rodman (Red-carpet interview)

Pamela Anderson obviously has a heart every bit as big as her implants. Having lent her name and her almost permanently pained expression to Comedy Central’s Roast in return for a sizeable donation to PETA, she took her charity to the next level by allowing it to become a benefit for one poor dumb animal in particular: Tommy Lee.

Personally, I was tired of Lee’s penis by the time Roast Master Jimmy Kimmel had finished salivating all over it in his opening remarks, but apparently, each and every comedian on view felt either so intimidated or intrigued by Lee’s celebrated trouser python that they all refused to let it lie. So to speak. Curiously, there were far fewer references to spousal abuse or Hepatitis C.

Worse, Anderson not only gave her one-trick pony a thorough massage of his ego, she also allowed him to inflict his “music” on a captive audience. I’d rather have seen Tommy waving his penis around on stage for 30 minutes than have to listen to him sing for three. However, you shouldn’t be put off buying Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson Uncensored! just because Tommy Lee gets to sing. Oh no, you should refuse to buy this gem because it makes Stacked look like it was written by Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde at the peak of their powers.

In the bonus material red-carpet interviews, the simpering charisma void known as Natasha Leggero asks, “Do you think Pamela Anderson knows what to expect? From the top insult comics?” Presumably Anderson didn’t, otherwise she would surely have insisted somebody booked a couple of proper comedians as well. Because on what they show here, these top insult comics would struggle to win a battle of wits with Tommy Lee’s penis.

The highlights, such as they are, include Bea Arthur’s deadpan readings from Anderson’s own book, Lisa Lampanelli’s outstanding bile, and Courtney Love’s stand-up comedy debut, most noticeable for the fact that La Love was in almost complete control of her timing, if utterly detached from anything remotely resembling reality.

On the red carpet, Nick DaPaolo confessed that most of the roast would consist of untested material written in the bathtub half an hour before a comedian leaving for the show. Sarah Silverman was a clear exception (perhaps because she doesn’t bathe?): she simply recycled an unfunny routine about Jimmy Kimmel’s smelly balls, and threw in a couple of medium quality pops at Tom Cruise and Courtney Love. Apparently, Silverman doesn’t care if I think she’s a racist, she just wants me to think she’s thin. On this limited evidence, “not funny” is winning out over “thin.”

Much of the material on display here is so far below the waist that it’s positively gynaecological in nature, but no-one comes across as more of an incompetent cervix than Andy Dick, a man whose tenuous claims to fame never cease to elude me. Dick’s routine had him pretending to be Anderson’s plastic surgeon so that he could feel her up repeatedly and at length, and was about as funny as anything involving Andy Dick has ever been. Which sums it up for this whole roast experience, really.