DeGeneres kicked off Saturday's show by admitting that she had debated whether or not to include references to her coming out experience in her new act. If she was rusty or nervous, it didn't show. Like Jerry Seinfeld, DeGeneres finds humor in common situations by using her vivid imagination. New comedy bits found her answering 1-800 calls from people who needed further instructions on using shampoo, pondering what dogs would say if they could talk, and wondering if ants ever feel road rage while marching single file. She suggested that it's easy to kill bugs because we can't see their faces.
People think they're so intelligent.
Let them try shooting silk out of their butts and see what they can make. Even when she occasionally laughed at her own jokes, the effect was conversational rather than smug, and all of her tales ended with a solid punch line. For the most part though, DeGeneres was able to elicit big laughs with a minimum of venom or obscenity, and on today's stand-up comedy circuit, that's quite an achievement. The encore for DeGeneres' hour-long performance featured her taking questions from the audience. This segment was filmed for a documentary that's being directed by DeGeneres' partner, actress Anne Heche, whose brief appearance on stage brought a thunderous round of applause.