Stream It Or Skip It: 'David Spade: Dandelion' on Prime Video, a new stand-up special that extends his Hollywood minute (2025)

After spending the first couple of years in the pandemic as a comic foil on Netflix, hosting The Netflix Afterparty, and releasing a 2022 special on that platform, David Spade has taken his latest hour of musing thoughts to Amazon Prime Video. Spade describes himself as a dandelion, so what happens when you blow on him? Are you wishing on a star? Or are seeds just scattering everywhere?

DAVID SPADE: DANDELION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: You likely still associate Spade with Saturday Night Live, thanks to his past associations with Chris Farley, more recent collaborations with Adam Sandler, and his current podcast with Dana Carvey, Fly on the Wall.

The Joe Dirt star’s upcoming big-screen work includes a film he co-wrote and co-stars with Theo Von in called Busboys.

For this, his first hour for Amazon, Spade directed himself on tour at the Paramount Theatre in Denver, sharing his sardonic thoughts on celebrity auctions, topical jokes, and awkward massages.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?:How many sarcastic 60-year-old guys are there in comedy these days? Is it all of them? No, but it may seem that way.

Memorable Jokes: Ironically, the most memorable joke might be a riff Spade makes in the opening minutes, when he pauses to reflect (“off the record”!?!) on the long, wired microphone he’s working with at the Denver Paramount. He initially wanted to zing the venue for the old-school tech, then shifts his attention to the platform that’s, well, platforming his new hour. “This is Jeff Bezos getting a fifth private jet and then he gets my dogshit mic off a Black Friday deal,” Spade quips.

Our Take: Much of his material is entirely forgettable, and even he makes fun of himself at times for choosing topics that aren’t so topical in 2025, such as the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, or the Titan submersible implosion from two years ago. Although the latter does lead him to an astute observation about billionaires wanting to escape from the rest of us. “I’m rich. I find things to do on the surface of this planet,” Spade jokes.

But there’s not a lot beyond the surface of his premises. He’s not exactly mining new comedic ground by complaining about airlines or casinos that serve Pepsi over Coke, that Jason Statham movies might not make a lot of logical sense, or that porn categories are a lot wilder now than they were before the internet. Spade may avoid the most hack of observations about his colonoscopy, but he doesn’t dig into the premise as deeply as his doctors did.

It’s an hour of many disparate thoughts. Like having someone tell you a story with a hundred tangents, only for you to wonder what the point of the story was in the first place. All of which means your enjoyment of the hour depends almost entirely upon whether you already liked hanging with this particular storyteller.

Spade’s at his most interesting here when he gets personal. When he reveals he doesn’t get many Christmas cards, and that his brother never knows what to get him as a gift, resulting in some oddly unexpected presents. Or when Spade recounts attending a celebrity auction Sean Penn had held to benefit Haiti, and how Spade’s insecurity resulted in him bidding well beyond his means. “Honestly, I shouldn’t be here,” he says, reflecting on the situation. And after winning a prize he wanted but at a steep cost, he jokes: “I need to text someone and see if we’re doing Grown Ups 3.”

Or perhaps this Amazon payout is covering it.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Unlike his previous effort three years ago for Netflix, something feels a bit off here. Perhaps Spade’s proven formula of sarcastically commenting on Hollywood is producing diminishing returns. He still has his comic strengths as a late-night talker and a supporting onscreen zing-slinger, to be certain, but they’re not showcased in their best light here.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories:The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.