Dane Jeffrey Cook (born March 18, 1972) is a stand-up comedian and film actor. While he's still active today under both professions, a mention of his name is likely going to bring back memories of his heyday in the mid-2000s.
Cook is well-known for his stage persona, which he reportedly based upon his parents, and which involves a great deal of long-form storytelling, surreal tangents, and babbling non-stop like he's constantly almost out of breath. He was also popular for being one of the first stand-up comics to rise to fame by capitalizing on the Internet via a personal webpage and a MySpace account, which gave him a sizable fanbase among college students and contributed to impressive album sales.
However, Cook is nowadays inseparable from his reputation as the household name of famously unpopular comedians among other stand-up comics and comedy writers, not least mentioning the memetic status it's gained among the public. This includes an infamous rant by Dr. Cox on Scrubs.
Notably, with the exception of Dan In Real Life, Cook's films tend to be received very poorly by movie critics. He also appeared as himself in a 2011 episode of Louie, where he discussed a plagiarism controversy involving allegations that Cook stole bits from Louis C.K.
He's the Trope Namer for The Friend Nobody Likes, based off a memorable routine of his in which he discusses the trope in detail.
Discography:
- Harmful if Swallowed (2003)
- Retaliation (2005)
- Rough Around the Edges (2007)
- Isolated Incident (2009)
- I Did My Best (greatest hits compilation; 2010)
Filmography:
- Dan in Real Life
- Employee of the Month (2006)
- Good Luck Chuck
- Guns, Girls & Gambling (basically As Himself if he were a vaguely corrupt sheriff)
- Mr. Brooks (where non-fans have the delight of seeing him killed with a shovel)
- My Best Friend's Girl
- Mystery Men (during a Terrible Interviewees Montage as "The Waffler")
- Planes (voice)
- Planes: Fire & Rescue (voice)
- Simon Sez (His feature debut)
- Detention
- Waiting...
Tropes applying to Dane Cook:
- Alone Among the Couples: One of his routines, simply titled "Love," is about this trope and the frustration many us have felt at least once of being the only person we know who isn't in a relationship."When you don't have love, it's like there's a party going on and everybody was invited except for you, and you just happen to be walking by that house in the rain."
- Anachronic Order: "At the Wall", in which Dane tells the ending first, and then proceeds to tell the whole story. He even mentions a famous aficionado of this trope: Quentin Tarantino.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Invoked by his "Creepy Guy at Work" story. The set-up is that every workplace has that one creepy employee everyone avoids. However, Dane says that he goes out of his way to talk to the creepy guy every day, and even buy him candy bars. This is so when the guy inevitably goes nuts and shoots up the office, Dane will be spared for being so nice.Dane: He starts shooting up the place. (mimics shotgun firing) But he gets to my office, he's gonna be like... (cocks shotgun, gasps) "Thanks for the candy." Yeah, you're gonna talk to that guy, now.
- Bee Afraid: Defied. "Would You Rather?" starts with him making fun of people who die from bees, stating that he'd retaliate against this by punching every bee in the face.
- Black Comedy: Occasionally.
- "B&E" is all about committing breaking and entering on some random stranger's house by kicking in their front door. After fleeing the scene of the crime, Dane feels guilty about not stealing anything, as stealing something would have at least provided the family closure. He imagines that the family must've been haunted by it for years, wondering "What the hell did he take?" in their quiet moments.
- In a bit about The Price Is Right, Dane says that the Big Wheel is actually filled with blood, and that Bob Barker is actually a zombie who's been dead since 1987.
- Call-Back:
- "The Chicken Sangwich The Heckler and The Kabbash" references "The BK Lounge" via its title, much to the audience's satisfaction.
- "At the Wall" also references his "fuck shoes" assertion from "Car Accident", to a similar reaction.
- The Caper: "The Heist," where Cook argues that "more than sex, guys would rather be part of a heist."Where's the van? The van was supposed to be here!
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Has a very hyperactive imagination, which can lead to some very strange tangents. For example, a story about Dane confronting an Atheist that sneezed on him takes a brief detour where Dane discusses lining up a Windex bottle properly.
- Do Wrong, Right: When talking about how much he wanted to do a B&E (breaking and entering), all he did was just kick in two doors and leave. Dane laments that he didn't take anything, since it must be psychologically destroying the family to figure out what he took from their house. Or, at the very least, left something there that they didn't have before ("Nothing appears to be missing, but there is a lava lamp here now, not sure what that's about"), all for the sake of really messing with the family's heads.
- Epic Rocking: Has several tracks over 10 minutes long ("At the Wall", "The Chicken Sangwich The Heckler and The Kabbash", "Cheater 2.0", "Cinematic Adventures", "DJ Diddles") as well as some slightly below that ("B&E", "Truth About Lying", "I Did My Best", "The Atheist", "Bonus Track"). His longest track, "The Game of Love and How To Destroy It", is over 20 minutes long.
- Flipping the Bird: Discussed in "Fuk and the Finga". Some guy flipped him off in New York, leading to Cook wondering who invented the middle finger as an insult. He eventually created the super-finger, or "su-fi", which is the middle and ring fingers both up with the thumb pointed out. The "su-fi" eventually became a symbol of his.
- Friendly Tickle Torture: Discussed, saying that it "started fun [and] ended horribly" by turning into actual Tickle Torture.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: The trope name comes from one of his routines in which he discusses this. He finishes it by stating that if you don't know which one of your friends is this, then that's because you yourself are this trope.
- Gaslighting: Played for laughs and discussed. After kicking in the front door and a closet door of some stranger's house, Cook admits that it must have been bizarre for that family to come home to find nothing missing. Cook then imagines a scenario where he keeps randomly kicking in the front door for no reason whatsoever, psychologically destroying the father of the household into wanting a divorce.
- G-Rated Drug: "Hopped Up on the Q"note .
- Greatest Hits Album: I Did My Best.
- Heel Realization: Played for laughs. In "B&E", Dane kicks in the door to a stranger's house in order to commit breaking and entering. However, as soon as Dane kicked the door, he realized that he didn't want to do a B&E after all; he just wanted to kick a door in.
- Ignored Epiphany: When he was about to "do a B&E" by kicking in the door to a random stranger's house, he didn't know if he could go through with it. Then he said "I got it!" and kicked down the door.
- Less Embarrassing Term: He calls Burger King "The B.K. Lounge" because as a teenager he was embarrassed to tell his friends that his after-school job was at the aforementioned restaurant.
- Live Album: Rough Around the Edges: Live from Madison Square Garden.
- Memetic Hand Gesture: The "su-fi" (short for "super finger"), something of an "upgrade" from the regular middle finger gesture that includes both the middle and ring fingers. It has two different meanings.
- Metaphorgotten: His jokes go into deep story telling and exaggerates a slew of this. Case and point: He made a joke talking about masturbation, saying that he imagined having sex with a woman who turns into a dragon, and then is taken away to a laboratory for testing. The ending is that he's too busy imagining that to jerk off anymore.
- Most Wonderful Sound: One of his routines is about how much he loves the sound of car alarms, to the point that he wrote lyrics for them.
- Mushroom Samba: Snorting Nestle Quik powder would apparently give him "fucked-up dreams".
- No Indoor Voice: He once worked at Burger King, and hated people who would yell at the drive-thru for no reWHOPPER NO ONION! Though Cook admits that they were slightly better than people who talked so quiet that he couldn't hear them.
- Paranoia Fuel: Lampshades this during his routine about breaking into somebody's house. He didn't steal anything, because he realized five seconds after breaking in that all he wanted to do was kick in a door. Later, he wondered whether he'd unwittingly shattered the homeowner's psyche when they came home to find the door busted in, but no theft. He goes into a routine where the family's life falls apart because the dad is worried about another door getting kicked in.
- Person as Verb: In "At the Wall", Dane decides to "Tarantino it" by telling the ending first and then going back to the start to tell the full story.
- Schmuck Bait: After telling the audience to always line up a Windex and never put it halfway, Dane lampshades that someone will probably try doing that when they get home. He then wonders what would happen if a ghost came out of the bottle.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He once wanted to break into somebody's house at steal something. It was only after he'd kicked in the front door to a stranger's house (and an unlocked closet door) that he realized how bad an idea that was, and ran off.
- The Shelf of Movie Languishment: NBC axed his comedy Next Caller after filming four out of its six-episode order, citing creative differences.
- There Was a Door: His routine about Kool-Aid Man's tendency to burst through walls."Fuck drinking out of him; if that was me, I'd be like, 'No, no, no, you fix that wall before my dad gets home from work! He's gonna beat me with a belt; he's not gonna believe a talking bowl of fruit punch came in here.' You stupid idiot. Yeah, coming through the wall is real fucking cool! Using the front door is cool!"
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: "My Son Optimus Prime", in which Dane says that he'd like to name his child "Brrrrr" (pronounced like an onomatopoeia, no less).
