Neil Hamburger

Gregg Turkington's great comic creation, Neil Hamburger always gives the kind of painful, masochistic performance Andy Kaufman built his entire career upon. But whoever came up with the inspired idea of getting him to open up for Tenacious D during their tour deserves a medal, as does Hamburger for getting up and doing his shtick each and every night. Right from the very beginning, it's clear that the crowd were there to see Tenacious D. They don't care about Hamburger and when he begins with his Santa Claus jokes, he is, not surprisingly, greeted with heckles, and that's when the real comedy begins. For the next 30 minutes, Hamburger ridicules and taunts the crowd, mixing his old school comedian lines with the most obscene insults he can muster. Despite everything that gets thrown back at him, he keeps going and even tells a few crowd-pleasing jokes, including a great one about Metallica, to win the audience back. He then, of course, threatens that Tenacious D won't show up just so they hate him again. This is completely hilarious and a comedic master class.