This story starts with me scrolling through Instagram. A video came up of Patton Oswalt, the comedian most known for voicing Remy in Ratatouille, announcing a new tour, Who’s Ready to Laugh?. This was around September, and I immediately texted my mom the tour dates and ticket information because the closest he would come to Missoula was in Seattle on New Year’s Eve. By that evening, we had plane tickets, a place to stay, and tickets to his show. 

     Patton has always been an influence on how I write and one of my favorite comics, so seeing him live as my first professional comic was exciting. I was introduced to his comedy, admittedly, a little young, probably nine or ten. He has become one of my favorites. Other comics like Hasan Minhaj and Jeff Dunham have come to Missoula, but I was always too young to go according to my mom. Finally, I was old enough. After a 90-minute flight, my mom and I landed in Seattle the day before the show.

     The day of the show, my mom and I walked around the downtown area because the theater where Oswalt was performing was right underneath the Space Needle. We enjoyed good food, did tourist-y things, and avoided falling and breaking our necks on the sheets of ice that were the sidewalks. Finally, we got to go to the theater and watched as the whole place filled, waiting for Patton. I made an Instagram post about being excited and tagged him, resulting in him messaging me just three heart emojis, but it got me more excited for the show. He had vintage music playing, music that would, ironically, occasionally be interrupted by ads about removing ads. Eventually the lights dimmed and it was time for the show to begin as Patton spoke and introduced his opener. 

     His opening act had a great set on getting older and why he isn’t the most relatable person we’ve ever met, but when Patton took the stage, people went insane and cheered wildly. Just as I predicted, Patton did explain that later in 2022, the material he had prepared would become part of a new special, most likely with Netflix, as they’ve produced his last three specials: Talking For Clapping, Annihilation, and I Love Everything. 

     He covered everything over the last 20-something months, including quarantine, the vaccine, and disturbing Christmas carols. He described how in the ‘50s everyone showed up for the Polio vaccine, regardless of political affiliation. He said that the logic behind it wasn’t great and that the only reason they did it was because, “I can’t be racist if I’m dead,” but people still took the vaccine anyway. He talked about how his quarantine went and how his wife almost beat an AC repairman with a pink baseball bat.

     Patton engaged in crowd work, picking on various audience members in the first two or three rows, almost giving up because most of them were software developers. Then he ended it after a woman from close to the back was shouting about the charity organization she worked for. He ended his set, and it was fantastic to see someone who does that professionally because you could tell he was having a blast. There was a spot where he acknowledged that one bit didn’t have a proper ending, but will when the special is shot. I learned in that moment that it’s sometimes okay to go up when not fully prepared. I prefer to be fully prepared if possible, but that won’t always work, so it was cool to see someone I look up to do something like that.

     What I saw that night may be different than what goes into the special, but I’m excited to see the actual special later this year.