Def Comedy Jam More All Stars, Vol. 2

This second volume of raw and gritty More All Stars episodes from the early 1990s finds comedians Martin Lawrence and Joe Torry still on active duty as frequent hosts. (Between introducing up-and-coming, African American comics, Lawrence gets in some good licks about the psychological contrast between deranged white men and defeatist black men getting fired from their jobs.) The overall quality of the shows is a bit lower than Volume 1, but Steve Harvey hits a double with satiric observations about why blacks never hitch rides, Tony Brown strikes a nerve with a joke about ice-skating as a white pursuit, and Gerald Kelly delivers a clever penis plaint from his member's point-of-view. ("You tryin' to suffocate me with that thing?"). Speaking of which, the John and Lorena Bobbitt drama--fresh news at the time--figures prominently in the gags, though to uneven effect. --Tom Keogh