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In its drive to produce content, Netflix has seized upon the comedy stand-up special as a pretty solid moneymaker, seeing as how they are cheap to produce and often have name recognition built in. They’ve even managed to raise the profile of several comedians and comedy writers, like the way Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra made her one of the better-known comedians working in the field. In 2018, she released her second special, Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife, with more observations about race and culture, with some notes about pregnancy and motherhood as well. In a seeming showcase of deja vu, Wong is again filmed on tour in her third trimester, this time with her second child.

Her onstage persona seems to be a kind of cross of Chelsea Handler and Sam Kinison, alternating almost ominously quiet deadpan with manic loudness. Even though Handler is one of my least favorite comedians — and I will happily make the case that she’s not really a comedian at all — Wong makes it work pretty well and manages to omit some of the weakest parts of Handler’s schtick in favor of channeling Kinison. In several places, her stories and jokes demonstrate significant creativity.

Unfortunately, she too often goes for the gross-out or low-hanging fruit of using profanity for shock value — something it hasn’t had since Lenny Bruce started annoying censors. The tendency leaves Hard Knock Wife a much weaker outing than it should. It could be interesting to see Wong write a show where she had to “work clean,” not because my ears wilt at profanity but because I think the challenge would force her to really use her clearly demonstrated talent and creativity to make more funny punchlines and fewer gross-out gags run into the ground.

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Married comedians Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher decided not to spend time apart on the road during a recent tour and so they broke their act up into three distinct parts. Leggero did a set of jokes, Kasher did a set of jokes and then the pair of them did a little bit of scripted material before calling volunteer couples up from the audience for “relationship counseling,” i.e., a mild roasting. Their Netflix special was also filmed with a very obvious baby bump as Leggero was expecting the couple’s first child.

The Netlflix version breaks the three parts into about equal portions and opens with Leggero’s set. She offers some political as well as biographical material, commenting on the strangeness of some of her family and also throwing out observations about pregnancy and impending motherhood. Kasher follows with his own jokes, which lean heavily on biography. Given that he describes his mother as a militant deaf feminist, he has a lot of stuff to pick from.

The two individual sets are the weakest links of the three, for different reasons. Leggero’s onstage character is standard Handleresque vacuous mean girl and she does a few too many jokes in service to it instead of in service to getting laughs. Her Trump jokes are not at all new or very creative. She lands some punchlines, though, and if she were to fully commit to the onstage persona as itself the butt of a joke she might make it funnier. Kasher’s growing up years are simply hilarious as told, but he also retreads a lot of familiar ground as he tries to make some well-known tropes funny by making them more vulgar.

Their shared set is the funniest and the most fun, since Leggero tones down her persona and the pair of them are obviously having fun working together. They also clearly like their audience and appreciate the people who come onstage to have a little fun made of them. That set offers some solid ground for similar work if the couple decides to try it again, and could easily make another special worth watching.

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Steve Martin and Martin Short met on the set of the movie The Three Amigos, and have been friends ever since. Earlier this year they performed together in a tour titled An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life. The title alone offers a clue as to the kind of wry self-directed humor you get when you watch the special of the same name.

The pair have long histories in comedy, stretching back to the twilight years of “Old Showbiz” in Martin’s case. They make fun of no one more than they make fun of themselves and each other, with frequently hilarious results. They work with a variety of settings, moving from standing in front of the audience to a kind of storytelling segment in easy chairs to musical numbers. Short’s oddball Broadway number is less funny for its actual material, for example, than it is for the way he uses it to poke fun at himself. He also trots out one of his longtime characters, Jiminy Glick, as a “ventriloquist’s dummy” for Martin as they make fun of several politicians and celebrities. They are equal opportunity needlers, mocking Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren right alongside Sarah Sanders and Ivanka Trump.

It’s not all jokes. Martin plays his banjo for a couple of numbers and they’re joined by his backup band, the Steep Canyon Rangers.  Language-wise, only one profanity surfaces, twice, and again the two veterans uses it to mock themselves and each other. It is, however the proverbial “MF bomb,” so be advised if that bothers you. Of the three, the Martin & Short special is the funniest, even with Short’s weak spots. Wong, Leggero and Kasher demonstrate they can get some laughs now, but they have a ways to go to show they’ll be able to get them when they are in their late 60s and early 70s.