Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Matt Rife: Lucid’ On Netflix, A Crowd Work Special Where The Crowd Provides The Biggest Laughs

Matt Rife shot to fame over the past couple of years thanks to going viral on TikTok and Instagram for his clips talking to the crowd during his stand-up sets. So it makes sense that after scoring a hit last year with his Netflix debut, that the streaming giant would want to double down and give Rife’s fans what they want. A full hour of crowd work. Are you not entertained?!?

MATT RIFE: LUCID – A CROWD WORK SPECIAL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Matt Rife says he began his professional stand-up comedy career as a 16-year-old at The Comedy Zone in Charlotte, “so this place holds a very close, special place for me.” Special enough that he wanted to come home to get to know the people he was entertaining all these years.

The hour does have a running theme: Dreams. Rife says his dreams have come true, but he wanted to hear from the audience, giving them different prompts to find out about their own dream jobs, their weirdest recurring dreams/nightmares, and their horniest wet dreams.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Plenty of comedians have tried before and since Rife to gain traction on YouTube (or Comedy Central in the before times, as Big Jay Oakerson did as far back as 2016) with crowd-work specials, but the closest reference for current Netflix subscribers is most likely Jeff Ross, who has devoted segments of his specials (solo or with Dave Attell) to roast audience members.

Memorable Jokes: Rife opens the hour with some traditional crowd, picking out a guy in the front row wearing a black cowboy hat and impossibly long-toed boots, getting one of the boots and holding it up to show the crowd as a prop for more jokes.

In the early going, Rife confesses that he wanted to be a fighter pilot after seeing Top Gun as a kid, but that his poor eyesight dashed his dreams by the time he hit the ninth grade. Which leads to his big transgressive moment: A 9/11 reference. How would his lack of vision impact his flying skills? “I would’ve missed both those towers,” Rife cracks.

When he does turn it over to his audience, they leap at the chance for the spotlight. The first to chirp in is a woman, attending the show with her mother, who run a business that teaches women how to give better blowjobs. Next to offer up their dream job? A woman who says she’s a special needs teacher for kids in grades K-5. Rife asks if she has a favorite student. “Yeah, my daughter.” Spoiler alert: Her daughter is an adult who has also worked in schools.

When another woman volunteers that she’s a commercial airline pilot, we see/hear the following exchange:

Rife: “What airline?”

Audience member: “I”m not saying.”

Rife: “That’s the Spirit!” 

The comedian does have some sincere follow-up questions, but when he wonders what the quickest route is to an airline gig, a woman from the crowd shouts “blowjob!” The room erupts, and Rife, smiling, clarifies:“I didn’t say that.”

Our Take: And therein lies the rub.

In his big Netflix special from 2023 (Natural Selection), and also in this hour, Rife wants the viewers to know that he’s more than just crowd-work clips.“It’s a very small part, online, compared to what we actually tour around the country with,” he says.

And yet, as he also warns them in the room: “I want you to be aware, you are as equally at fault for how this goes, as am I, OK?” 

Crowd work clips have encouraged more heckling and more aggressive heckles in live stand-up shows. Little wonder that Rife’s audience jumps at any chance to be part of the show. That guy in the ridiculous boots might not have asked to be in the front row, but you could bet good money that the producers seating Rife’s crowd made sure to sit him where Rife could see him right away. Toward the end of the hour, one woman really attempts to hijack the whole hour with a wandering tale about her daddy issues, and then standing up out of her chair to being scanning the crowd. Rife implores her to sit back down, calling her Joaquin Phoenix from The Joker.

To make his own case, as he had in last year’s special, Rife wants us all to know that it’s not as easy as it looks.“Here’s the thing about this moment right now,” he says. “Next time you see some haters in my comments going ‘All he does is crowd work. It’s so easy.’ Is it?”

Our Call: SKIP IT. There’s a time and a place for crowd-work during a live stand-up comedy show. But time and again in this hour, Rife’s crowd prompts the loudest laughs. Not sure this makes the case for Rife as a top stand-up, but it’ll probably provoke more people to want to buy tickets to his shows so they can be in on the jokes, too.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.