Hank Green isn’t the first YouTuber to take a stab at a stand-up comedy special, but he is most definitely the biggest OG from YT to do so. And as Green told Decider, his decision to do so came about because stand-up helped him recover from chemo, and he realized the format was ready-made for him to talk about how he recovered.
The Gist: Green’s hourlong special is the first of six to come out on Dropbox under the Dropout Presents label.
Directed by Jonah Ray Rodrigues (MST3K), and filmed at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles, Hank Green: Pissing Out Cancer takes viewers through Green’s journey from his Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis in May 2023 through his chemo and recovery, complete with blackboard diagrams and scientific jargon. Which should come as absolutely no surprise to the 15.7 million subscribers watching Green host the educational Crash Course series on YouTube, or theother 7.94 million subscribers watching him host SciShow.
As he quips at one point: “I’m trying to get an A in cancer. This is all extra credit.”
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: If you watched Keith Robinson’s new Netflix special (“Different Strokes”) about his recovery from multiple strokes, then Green’s special hits some similar notes, although from a vastly different perspective and point of view. Man of comedy (Robinson) vs. man of science (Green).
Memorable Jokes: As with many comedians perhaps introducing themselves to a new, wider audience, Green addresses his looks up front, specifically making fun of how his hair grew back curly after chemotherapy. “I’ve been in remission for this long” he says, pointing to his do. “That’s why they make your hair fall out. So that you have a measuring stick of how you’re doing.” While Green hoped his curls would come in making him look like Jeremy Allen White, “I got the Mark Zuckerberg situation.”
He gets into the proverbial good, bad and ugly parts of a cancer diagnosis. “No one talks about the good parts,” he says. Which are, what exactly? “I didn’t have to do Zoom calls anymore.” The bad parts obviously include not only the immediate health crisis but also having to tell your parents and/or children. And the ugly parts? Green gets into some of the gory and/or just plain gross aspects. “It’s gross, I’m gonna tell you, and you can’t leave,” he jokes.
His hospital stints offer up opportunities for Green to joke about his crazy dreams involving the Baltimore Orioles, and theories bout ant wings, before he gets to the titular part of his cancer journey. Living in Montana, Green also can make light of how a masked visit to a MAGA-like store can start out confrontational but flip on a dime, or a beanie reveal. And because cancer also happens to be an astrological star sign, Green has fun going in on the naming of the stars as a “nice little constellation prize.”
Our Take: When you see and hear Green say, “So I got cancer,” it’s remarkable to reflect on just how much our attitudes about stand-up comedy have changed and evolved since Tig Notaro dumped her prepared stand-up set to reveal her own diagnosis 12 years ago (later released as a Grammy-nominated comedy album).
Green knows he’s not the first before or since then to joke about living with cancer, but he might just be a pioneer in translating the complex science and nature of his particular condition through comedy. Hence the title. As Green jokes during the hour, he had no idea that he’d have any sort of pain while peeing as a side effect of chemo, not to mention the fact that seeing cloudy urine meant his chemo was working.“You gotta tell people about that! That’s very empowering!” he says. “You’re telling me when I see the cloudy pee that means I’m succeeding at killing cancer?!? And then I flush it into the sewer where it belongs?”
Outside of his story of dealing with a potentially combative stranger in a Montana store, there’s nothing inherently political about Green’s message. Not that that’s stopped anyone in 2024 from turning any and every issue into a politically divisive topic. The closest Green gets is when he jokes about wondering what to do while he’s all alone in the patient room of a doctor’s office. “There are rules. It’s a doctor’s office. Not Mar-A-Lago.”
The more important message, however, comes midway through his hour, when Green turns to look directly into a side camera and wags his finger. “Tell people you care about them! Do it, now. Right now. People at home: Take out your phone. Find a person who you don’t — who you think like it’ll be super sad if they die, but you also wouldn’t ruin your life or anything. Like not your son, not your best friend, not your wife. Just take it, look at it and be like, who’s a person? Like one of the 100s of people in your life that you, it’d be super sad if they died, but like 4 or 5 days, you’d be pretty over it. Text them, and tell them how you much you love them.”
That’s just a healthy prescription for anyone to follow.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Green hoped to “get an A in cancer” and so far, so great! As for Green as a stand-up comic, I’ll give him a B+ for now, but with all of his extra credit duly noted. Especially when, over the end credits, he clarifies and corrects anything he mistakenly said during the performance. “Like any good stand-up comedy show, this one has corrections,” he jokes. If only more comedians followed his lead on that!
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
