Stadium Fluffy review: Gabriel Iglesias is funny as hell in nearly two-hour special

3.5/5

Story: Gabriel Iglesias becomes the first stand-up comedian ever as he performs to a sold-out crowd at LA’s Dodger Stadium. He takes audiences through almost two hours of jokes centred on experiences during the pandemic and some from well before that too.

Review: I was not a big fan of international stand-up comedy for the longest time. The few I had seen were all about jokes on the size and shape of certain body parts, and then some on bodily functions, mostly the smelly kind, which I was not very enthused about. Toilet humour just does not make sense to me. But then, Covid struck, and as we were all at home with a lot of time to kill, the algorithms of certain social media sites ensured that I come across Michael McIntyre, Ricky Gervais (of course) and Gabriel Iglesias. Of course, Dave Chapelle and Kevin Hart were also there, but I preferred the other gentlemen, specifically Gabriel Iglesias, better known as Fluffy.

The thing about Fluffy is that his comedy is mostly about stuff that’s happened to him. Encounters with strangers that have either had hilarious outcomes or that he narrates in the most outrageously funny manner. Either which way, a Fluffy show will have you bursting out laughing, even when he’s saying something in Spanish and you have to rely on subtitles, it is still funny, simply because of his incredible voice modulation. Fluffy is a voice artiste, after all. I am two decades too late to the Fluffy party, but boy, do I like the vibe of it.

Stadium Fluffy is a special that was recorded at Gabriel’s sold-out show at LA’s Dodger Stadium. It’s just under two hours long, well over the time he was meant to do the special and included a note from him that he’d completed his Netflix obligation and that audiences were in a Gabriel Iglesias hangout thereafter. Like most other comedians, Fluffy too addresses the pandemic, which, we were told would be over in “two weeks”; how he came to lose 70 pounds during the lockdown, got vaccinated, etc. The thing about Fluffy is that he does not like divisive comedy, so he tries to stay away from certain topics, like politics, although he manages to sneak in a reference or two. Instead, he prefers something that unites everyone, food, so he talks about the ‘conflict’ he had while trying to order tacos, only to find that the place he was at was run by Greeks and not Mexicans and that they were selling gyros. For the uninitiated, a gyro is the Greek version of a taco.

Some of the best bits of the show included Fluffy’s ‘unsuccessful attempt’ at getting to host the Academy Awards, the Twitter cancel culture, offending boxer Canelo Alvarez, the story of the missing tape, being rich and how to stay being so, among others. In an interview after the show, Gabriel spoke about how he ended up paying a massive fine for overstaying on stage. He was there for three hours, including a half hour of drinking to celebrate the greatest night of his life.

Verdict: Stadium Fluffy is not Gabriel’s best work. It’s a party celebrating his over two-decade-long career, from the humble beginnings to performing at the Dodger Stadium, a feat no other comedian has achieved. The show is, no doubt, mighty hilarious, but one just can’t shake the feeling that he’s made of better stuff. Should you watch it, though? Oh yes, simply because Gabriel is a good story-teller. Enjoy!