Lil Dicky's FXX comedy Dave is funnier than it has any right to be

Decider

"On paper a show about the rise of Lil Dicky, a moderately popular rapper who started his career on YouTube, doesn’t seem like a well of comedy gold," says Kayla Cobb of rapper Dave "Lil Dicky" Burd's new FXX comedy. "And yet that’s exactly what Dave on FX is. Dave Burd’s incessant, bumbling awkwardness set against the aggressively cool world of the rap industry is a joke that never gets old. It’s also a fish-out-of-water story that stands at the center of one of the funniest new shows of the season." Cobb adds: "More often than not it’s that commitment to himself backed by his unmistakable talent that endears him to his friends and collaborators. Say whatever you want about Lil Dicky, but he can rap. There’s also a real pathos brimming on the edges of Dave’s chronic anxiety. Most of the series’ struggles boil down to a borderline self-sabotaging man panicking whenever he gets too close to his dreams. Fear of success is a very real part of life that isn’t often explored on TV. But Burd’s mile-a-minute and self-involved list of concerns often expose just how ridiculous these very relatable fears are."

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• Dave benefits from having to work harder in a more diverse TV era: "TV keeps discovering the sort of people who used to never get their own quasi-autobiographical shows, making it that much harder for all those young, white comedy schmoes out there who used to get their own quasi-autobiographical shows all the time. From just about any angle, that looks like progress," says Hank Stuever. "In that frame of mind, I wonder what FXX’s subversively endearing new comedy, Dave, might have looked like five or six years ago, when comedies about the raging insecurities of unmotivated young men (the inept sex, the stale bong water, the ratty apartments, dead-end jobs and endless online gaming) were plentiful and played out. In the present day, Dave has to work a little harder to present a fuller story, and that effort is worth it."
• Dave is like a parody of Donald Glover's Atlanta: "Dave feels like, of all things, a parody of FX's Atlanta and its absurdist take on authenticity, the organic evolution of hip-hop and the genre's ability to highlight and validate unheard voices, something Atlanta already does exceptionally," says Daniel Fienberg. "Whether that vein is intentional or unintentional, it's only limitedly amusing, and I occasionally found myself doubting its necessity and certainly the necessity of episodes running as long as 31 minutes."
• Unsurprisingly, much of what makes Dave worth watching is Dave himself: "In the pilot," says Ben Travers, "the character is an unimposing yet persistent dreamer who has a curiosity that’s hard to ignore — you want to see what this guy’s about, if he’s a gullible sucker, if he’s a street-savvy artist, if he’s any good at all — and co-creator/-writer Jeff Schaffer’s script stealthily builds to a performance you didn’t know you were waiting for: Lil Dicky’s songs, for those who don’t know, are easy to get caught up in and quite catchy. Watching him work is entertaining by itself, but the story around each performance either enhances the lyrics’ good humor or glimpses the general rapping excellence he’s promised."
• Watching Dave feels somewhat like being trapped with a terrible party companion: "When Donald Glover made an FX show about characters trying to break into the music industry, it was Atlanta, among the most expansive, richly imaginative shows of the century so far," says Daniel D'Addario. "When Lil Dicky does it, it’s a show whose breaks from flatly telling us about his character’s private parts tend to follow a linear trajectory: Lil Dicky, a ditherer with more zeal for fame than true creative ambition, ends up trying something, it goes viral, everyone loves it. Dicky’s laconicness about everything other than talking about what’s under his clothes wears poorly over time: That the person more obliged to come up with a compelling justification for telling a story with its roots in the hip-hop world might in fact be the white rapper evidently needs to be said."
• Dave "Lil Dicky" Burd says his biggest challenge is convincing viewers that the most absurd aspects of the show are the most real: “I like that people can watch (the show) and be like, ‘Oh, he’s probably just joking,’” says Burd. “But then at the same time, I hate it. Because then it just makes it a dick joke. When really it’s the biggest truth of my life that I’m revealing. And it should be taken seriously, because it’s the thing that’s always weighed on me my whole life. It’s the reason I am who I am, is my dick. I know that sounds crazy. It’s the reason my name’s Lil Dicky. It’s the reason I’m so neurotic. It’s my gift and my curse.”
• In real life, Burd is self-assured to an extreme degree: “These guys would be crazy not to green-light this,” he recalls thinking to himself before pitching to executives at FX and FXX. "That’s just my honest opinion."
• Burd hopes Dave will allow him to grow beyond Lil Dicky: “I’m sick of being called Lil Dicky when I meet a person,” Burd says. “I love being a rapper and I picked the perfect rap name but I’m certainly Dave. That’s who I am. Lil Dicky is one of my major projects — probably the biggest project Dave will ever conceive — but I think the show is about the guy behind Lil Dicky, who I really feel everyone might appreciate.”