Jim Gaffigan, starring in Amazon's first-ever standup special, hasn't changed all that much

The A.V. Club

"Not discounting Amazon’s deep pockets or anything, but Quality Time seems designed to reassure his audience that he’s still the same Jim Gaffigan," Dennis Perkins says of Gaffigan's Amazon special. "You know, America’s dad-bod incarnate, making himself the butt of food and Midwestern unworldliness jokes while projecting an everyman common sense that renders observational comedy the rightful domain of full-bodied white guys everywhere. 'This is what I look like. It’s mostly my fault,' is Gaffigan’s opener in Quality Time, slyly encapsulating the ensuing 75-minute set by planting his old flag, once more, in the generous breadbasket of his agreeably outsized onstage persona. Amazon, puffing up its new comedy cash cow in advance of the special’s Friday release, advertises Quality Time by applying the Wall Street Journal’s dubiously narrow title of 'The King Of Clean Comedy' to its newest acquisition. And, sure, Gaffigan’s sensibilities aren’t ever going to veer into Chris Rock’s or Dave Chappelle’s lanes, but Gaffigan’s hardly setting himself up for an in-house residency in Branson, either. He’s too much of a careful craftsman for easy labels, even if Quality Time (directed and co-written by wife Jeannie Gaffigan) appears engineered to return to normalcy, in his life and comedy." ALSO: Gaffigan's observational comedy goes down like the comfort food.