Photo: Wilson Webb/Netflix
On a line-by-line, joke-by-joke level, Ellen DeGeneres’s newest (and possibly last) comedy special, For Your Approval, is an impressive, deft feat of comedy engineering. With a promise that she’ll address the accusations against her that led to the cancellation of her popular NBC daytime-talk series, DeGeneres weaves together an account of what she’s been doing lately, a vague explanation for her general demeanor as a boss, and classic Ellen-style material about everyday topics like windshield wipers and sweatpants.
As a project edited and produced for at-home consumption, For Your Approval is also a document of something going deeply, bizarrely wrong in the performance of stand-up comedy. DeGeneres’s jokes are often good, but time and again, she performs them in a way that communicates that she’s not looking for laughter — she is looking for praise. As she walks onstage at the beginning of the show, DeGeneres allows the audience to continue clapping for 45.7 seconds before she launches into her material. From that point onward, after the audience laughs at a joke, DeGeneres pauses and waits for them to shift into an applause break. The crowd obliges.
As the special continues, the audience becomes trained to do what DeGeneres expects, often breaking out into applause before a punch line is even uttered. Yes, there’s still laughter, but mostly the crowd bursts into rapturous applause every time DeGeneres performs an act-out, delivers a punch line, or offers a fact about her life. That’s not the audience’s fault — it’s a response DeGeneres is actively encouraging. (The special’s title, after all, is For Your Approval.) These applause breaks quickly become overwhelming for the viewer. How overwhelming, you might ask? Hopefully this complete list of every time it happens, and for how long, is enough to illustrate.
1. “Thank you. It seems like you still care!” (4.0 seconds)
2. “I stopped doing Botox and filler.” (7.5 seconds)
3. Ellen says she has no idea what the audience is thinking, but she hopes they’re thinking, This is marvelous, I’m so happy to be here. (9.0 seconds)
4. Ellen tells the crowd she’s here because she likes doing stand-up and because she does care what people think. (8.1 seconds)
5. In the middle of a joke about parallel parking, Ellen describes “the deep shame” of driving away rather than successfully parking the car. (8.4 seconds)
6. During a joke about the changing speeds of windshield wipers, Ellen narrates the process of fiddling with various settings, then says, “Then you catch the rearview mirror, and your back one’s been on the whole time.” (10.0 seconds)
7. “I have never used my parking brake. I have never parked my car and thought, I want it more parked than this.” (9.9 seconds)
8. “I shouldn’t have to guess from an exclamation point between two parentheses that my tire pressure is low.” (10.8 seconds)
9. Ellen does a joke about Martinizing clothes, then acknowledges that no one in their 20s knows what Martinizing is. (7.4 seconds)
10. Ellen also does not know what Martinizing is. (3.3 seconds)
11. “Let me catch you up with what I’ve been doing since you saw me last.” (9.0 seconds)
12. “I got chickens.” (2.6 seconds)
13. Ellen tells a joke that compares chickens laying an egg every day to the work of hosting a talk show every day. (7.0 seconds)
14. Ellen tells a joke about the fact that chickens dream with a punch line about how scientists should be working on climate change rather than investigating whether chickens dream. (7.6 seconds)
15. “That’s all for chickens. Gotta save some for the memoir.” (8.2 seconds)
16. Ellen does an act-out with the premise of being unable to remember what else in her life is worth talking about onstage, before concluding, “Oh yeah, I got kicked out of show business.” (16.2 seconds)
17. An act-out of a person staring at Ellen in a restaurant, waiting for her to be mean. (7.8 seconds)
18. Ellen recounts seeing an article with the headline “How Ellen DeGeneres Became the Most Hated Person in America.” “Now, I didn’t see the other names on the ballot, but …” (10.8 seconds)
19. Ellen says that she used to be at the top of polls asking who respondents most trusted to babysit their child. (7.9 seconds)
20. “Because when you think ‘good with kids,’ you immediately think ‘childless lesbian stand-up comedian.’” (7.5 seconds)
21. Ellen reminds the audience that she had a talk show where she ended each episode by saying “Be kind to one another.” (23.0 seconds)
22. “… Had I ended my show by saying ‘Go fuck yourselves’ …” (12.0 seconds)
23. Ellen says that 16 people who worked on her show started straight and left gay. (6.0 seconds)
24. Continuing on the theme of turning people gay, Ellen says that watching her show wasn’t enough. “You had to work there. You had to fill out a W-2.” (6.4 seconds)
25. “Andy Lassner was one of my executive producers.” (5.8 seconds)
26. Ellen tells a joke with the subtext that she should not have been expected to be both the talent and the boss of her daytime talk show. “I don’t think Ronald McDonald’s the CEO of McDonald’s.” (8.6 seconds)
27. Ellen begins a run about feminism and the expectations of leadership, and starts with a line where she performs how a female boss is expected to speak to her male underlings: “Excuse me, Jenkins, could you please step into my office …” (9.9 seconds)
28. “I’m exactly the opposite of how I was raised to be.” (8.5 seconds)
29. Ellen plays air guitar. (11.8 seconds)
30. Ellen acts out a man pretending to play golf while waiting in line. (12.4 seconds)
31. Ellen acts out a woman removing her heels so she can try to slap the top of a door frame. (5.9 seconds)
32. “For those keeping score, this is the second time I’ve been kicked out of show business.” (12.0 seconds)
33. “Eventually they’re going to kick me out a third time for being old. Mean, old, and gay, the triple crown.” (10.6 seconds)
34. Ellen suggests that gay people don’t like straight people either, but “we don’t make a big thing about it.” (9.7 seconds)
35. “For me, it was never about the money. It was about healing my childhood wounds. I thought, If I can make people happy, then they’ll like me. And if they like me, then I’ll feel good about myself. All I can say about that is thank God for the money.” (11.0 seconds)
36. “I don’t understand people who don’t wear sweatpants at home.” (6.4 seconds)
37. Ellen was invited to a last-minute dinner party for Mick Jagger, but she declined because she was in her sweatpants already. (9.9 seconds)
38. Ellen explains that honesty is only the best policy if it is something the other person wants to hear, like if they have something stuck in their teeth. But “as soon as you tell someone that all of their stories should be 50 percent shorter …” This gets a big laugh, but Ellen doesn’t move on. She instead just looks around quizzically. (12.1 seconds)
39. Ellen talks about how hard it was to keep her sexuality a secret and how she ultimately decided it was more important to be honest about who she is. (18.4 seconds)
40. Someone suggested Ellen get tested to see if she is on the spectrum. She says she isn’t — but technically she is, because doesn’t the entire spectrum include everyone? (9.8 seconds)
41. On having OCD, Ellen says, “It’s funny. I never thought of myself as obsessive. I think of myself as careful. And everyone else is careless and out of control.” (6.4 seconds)
42. Portia de Rossi told Ellen she obsesses over being on time. “This is the example she said I should share with you.” (6.1 seconds)
43. The example is that because of Ellen, they showed up so early for Usher’s Grammy after-party it was only them and the staff. She says they helped place candles on tables. (10.3 seconds)
44. Ellen discusses her frustration with how people treat the start times of parties: “Six means seven. Seven means eight. Eight means nine. Nine means nothing to me, because I’m not going.” (9.9 seconds)
45. Ellen talks about how incredible it is that a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. She acts out the first “drunk and confused” flight of the new butterfly. She stops the act-out and says, “And they make it to Mexico that way. I don’t know how.” She continues the act-out. (13.6 seconds)
46. Ellen goes on an extended riff about pigeons and how much they’ve fallen as a species after once being used to pass messages during wars. “They don’t even fly anymore,” she says. Not even to get out of the way of a car. She then begins a confusing act-out of pigeons moving out of the way. (12.5 seconds)
47. Ellen found a lost dog, so she took it home. The next day, she put up posters in search of its owner. The owner called and asked where Ellen found the dog. Ellen tells them where. The owners respond, “That’s where we live.” (13.2 seconds)
48. Ellen blames her talk show for giving her ADD. She says she became used to talking to people in five-minute segments, so when she’s at a party and someone talks to her for more than five minutes, she has the urge to say, “I’m sorry, we have to take a break.” (11.9 seconds)
49. Ellen can’t read books without getting distracted by her own thoughts. She acts out trying to read but getting lost thinking if she should grow her hair out, until apparently the book is “done.” (9.3 seconds)
50. Ellen wonders which is proper grammar: “one-leg pigeon,” “one-legged pigeon,” or “one leg–ed pigeon,” going back and forth over and over. (10.8 seconds)
51. Ellen says she is well-adjusted because she obsesses but doesn’t have the attention span to stick with an obsession or the memory to remember what she was obsessing over in the first place. (10.9 seconds)
52. While Ram Dass wrote a book called Be Here Now, Ellen wants to write a book for people with ADD called Yeah, But What’s That Over There? (10.6 seconds)
53. “I’m 66 years old.” (9.9 seconds)
54. Ellen doesn’t feel old. The only time she does is when she’s at a restaurant and trying to read a menu. (7.3 seconds)
55. Ellen shares her solution to the above problem: “They have a children’s menu. They should have a larger-print menu for older people.” (9.5 seconds)
56. At her regular checkup, the doctor asks Ellen how many drinks she has per week. Ellen responds, “First of all, it’s none of your business.” (7.8 seconds)
57. “Second of all, I’m going to lie to you here: three!” (6.4 seconds)
58. Ellen’s bone-density test she didn’t think she needed to take reveals she has “full-on osteoporosis.” “I’m like a human sand castle,” she jokes. “I can disintegrate in the shower.” (7.3 seconds)
59. Ellen says it’s hard to seem cool when talking about aging: “Hey, if you got arthritis in your knee, make some noise!” (5.4 seconds)
60. Now that she’s older, Ellen has gotten really into Wheel of Fortune, spending her time obsessing over how the million-dollar sliver is both sandwiched between two “Bankrupt” slivers and more narrow. She walks through her conspiratorial thinking, which ends with Portia walking into the room and asking, “Who are you talking to?” (10.0 seconds)
61. Ellen’s mother has dementia and is at a facility that has a lot of activities to keep residents stimulated. For example, one time someone booked a magician. Ellen plays out a scene of the magician trying to do a card trick with one of the women with dementia. “He goes through the whole thing. ‘Is this your card?’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes, it is!’” (9.4 seconds)
62. Ellen says her mother still thinks The Ellen DeGeneres Show is on the air. As a result, Ellen realized her whole life was wrapped up in the show, and her mother’s whole identity was wrapped up in being “Ellen’s mom.” Now, Ellen doesn’t have a show, and her mom doesn’t know she’s Ellen’s mom. “But she’s happy, and that’s all that matters.” (11.3 seconds)
63. “And I’m happy too.” (10.5 seconds)
64. “I’m happy not being a boss or a brand or a billboard, just a person. Just a multifaceted person, with different feelings and emotions, and I can be happy and sad and compassionate or frustrated. I have OCD and ADD. I’m honest. I’m generous. I’m sensitive and thoughtful. But I’m tough, and I’m impatient and demanding. I’m direct. I’m a strong woman.” (63.3 seconds)
65. Ellen says that partly because of her chosen profession, she used to care far too much about what other people thought of her. “The thought of anyone thinking I’m mean was devastating to me,” she says, “and it consumed me for a long time.” Now that she’s older and has more perspective, she realizes that “caring what people think, to a degree, is healthy. But not if it affects your mental health.” (9.8 seconds)
66. “After a lifetime of caring, I just can’t anymore. So I don’t.” (8.9 seconds)
67. After the show ends, Ellen comes back onstage to say “thank you.” Overwhelmed by the audience’s support of her, she keeps on saying “Wow.” (6.5 seconds)
68. “This was beautiful tonight.” (12.8 seconds)
69. Ellen says she didn’t think she’d ever do stand-up again or talk about what happened: “And the fact that I have been able to travel and do this and see the love and support that is still there for me, which I didn’t know I had …” (13.6 seconds)
70. “I’m so glad I got to do this. I’m so glad I got to say good-bye on my terms, and I can’t thank you enough.” (10.44 seconds)
In total, DeGeneres’s special features 718.8 seconds of applause breaks, not counting all the clapping for her entrance, the end of the show, and smaller claps in the middle of jokes. That’s just short of 12 minutes — enough time to perform her breakthrough 1986 Tonight Show set twice and have one minute to spare for dancing.