5 good comedy specials on Netflix you may have missed

Denis Leary: No Cure for Cancer (1992)

Given his acting chops–Rescue Me, Draft Day, Suicide Kings, The Amazing Spider-Man–it’s easy to forget Denis Leary started as a stand-up comic. No Cure for Cancer, which premiered in 1992,made him a household name.

Love him or hate him, he got people talking.

Before he tells the first joke, Leary sings an original song. Later, he abandons lyricism altogether:

"“I’m gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, hot pink, with whale skin hubcaps and all leather cow interior and big brown baby seal eyes for head lights (yeah), and I’m gonna drive in that baby at 115 miles per hour, gettin’ 1 mile per gallon, sucking down quarter pounder cheeseburgers from McDonald’s.”"

Material like this hasn’t aged well. And it’s surreal to see a comic smoking on stage. Yet if you belly up to the bar for a cocktail of Leary’s energy and cynicism, with a chaser of misanthropy, you won’t be disappointed.

Unlike Bill Hicks, to whom he is constantly compared, Leary’s outrage feels mannered. He’s yanking your chain, in other words, as he rants about drugs, non-smokers, vegetarians, and, in a philosophical detour, death. Plus, he has some good one-liners: “Poor Lou Gehrig. Died of Lou Gehrig’s disease. How the hell do you not see that coming?”

Watch Denis Leary: No Cure for Cancer on Netflix now.