Nick Kroll’s new comedy show on Netflix Little Big Boy aired on Netflix September 27, 2022. Since it’s airing it has received an 88% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.7/10 stars on IMDb. 

I personally enjoyed the show, meaning I forced my roommates to watch it with me twice in a 24 hour span to “research” for this article. I do not consider myself a stand up comedy expert, but ever since Netflix started airing comedy specials I have become quite the comedy connoisseur at the most. In these shows I notice a typical pattern throughout each. The comedian starts with short stories that all string together through a certain theme and get to the punchline quickly. Next there are one or two longer form stories, and finally there are some more short stories that call back to a previous bit from earlier in the show.

The first few stories found within the first ten minutes of the show the transitions were somewhat awkward. The first story was about an embarrassing encounter in his pubescent years and then jumped to his lactose intolerance causing an awkward situation in his karate class when he was prepubescent. He transitioned these stories with the phrase, “I was a late bloomer that’s why it was so bad that she pantsed me. I was also a picky eater.” After the second watch through this transition makes more sense and appears a bit more fluid, but as a first time watcher I was thinking, “where is he going with this?” That internal question was squashed as Kroll reeled me back in with his elaborate expressions and goofy voice impressions. 

During the second watch through I took note of the commonalities between the stories Kroll told, and it revealed the theme which was simply his life. This made his awkward transitions make more sense. However, Kroll’s comedic abilities do not shine the brightest through his storytelling abilities but rather his impressions and physical comedy. This aspect of his comedic style is seen the most in his cartoon show on netflix called big mouth. Through the cartoon medium Kroll has the ability to let the nuance of his voice impressions and creative mind go wild without little to no explanation. 

Obviously this is not how a comedy show works. The comedian starts from ground zero. It is simply them on a stage with the only visual they have to offer the audience is themselves. Kroll cannot simply walk on stage and do his impressions. He could, but it would not be compelling to his audience. In order to get to the part of his show where Kroll wows the audience he needs to provide some exposition, and while those skills were rusty his voice acting and physical comedy skills are arguably more valuable. Both of those skills are rather difficult to pull off. Every college student in America has to take a class on how to tell a good story which is the majority of what a comedian does. Kroll’s impressions and physical comedy gave Little Big Boy a special additive that overall makes his comedic style hard to replace.