Bert Kreischer’s Secret Time Burns Through Its Goodwill
Photo courtesy of Netflix
“Sometimes when my wife’s blowing me, I feel like she’s gagging for the wrong reasons.” That’s one of the opening salvos from Secret Time, Bert Kreischer’s new Netflix special. Kreischer bounds into the area with bear-like, Artful Dodger charisma to spare, expertly riling up the crowd. But then we’re brought back to how Kreischer’s wife “couldn’t give a handjob to save her life” and how “getting a sober handjob is a lot like getting molested at camp.”
One of Kreischer’s signature moves is this lip-biting look of wide-eyed glee that he gives after delivering a punchline, pulling himself away from the mic as if he wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place and thinks someone might take it away from him. Coupled with the reaction he generally gets, the audience also seems to think they’re all getting away with something someone told them not to do. Which circles back and reinforces the impression that Kreischer’s telling the dean what he thinks of him right to the dean’s face.
It’s a disappointing use of Kreischer’s considerable ability to let his audience in. Take one story halfway through the special that could have been simply a rote snowflake eye-roll about his daughter’s gym teacher having the kids play sports with an imaginary ball, but which turns into a heightened bit of concern when his daughter still fails to catch it. Here, Kreischer leads the audience a little bit ahead of the joke so they’ll have more fun when he whips around in front of them.