Celebrity Poker Showdown: Comic Relief for Katrina Relief

Celebrity Poker Showdown: Comic Relief for Katrina Relief by Roxanne McDonald

Celebrity Poker Showdown brings another entertaining card battle of the stars, but one of a more intense kind: tournament championship poker for Katrina relief.

Dave Foley, illustrious idiot savant in the closet comic introduces the players: Jason Alexander (George of Seinfeld), playing for United Way for the Greater New Orleans Area; Michael Ian Black (of Crank Yankers and Reno 911), playing for MAZON-A Jewish Response to Hunger; Ida Siconolfi (stay-at-home mom who won the Bravo.com online tournament), playing for The Children’s Health Fund; Keegan-Michael Key (Mad TV funnyman), playing for Habitat for Humanity; and Robin Tunney (The Craft and Prison Break), also playing for The Children’s Health Fund.

Within the first couple of hands, Robin Tunney takes a huge lead in chips, holding 71k to Ida’s 49k, Key’s 48.5k, Jason’s 42.5k, and MIB’s 39k. Worldwide Poker champ and expert co-host to Dave, Phil Hellmuth comments that the others better get used to Robin’s style, she is aggressive and bets, bets, bets. She stays chip leader, going up to 81,000, and continues to give the other fine players a cutthroat run for the championship money.

Michael Ian Black, unusually quiet when he has been at previous games cheeky, smirky, distracting, suddenly stalls while deciding what to bet. Someone expresses mock impatience and Michael snipes that his two pair might be worthy of taking the 42,000-dollar pot. Woops.

He actually told everyone what he had! Obviously, he intended to be comical but not disclosing, yet, he still wins the pot. Hmmm. Winning by reverse psychology, intimidation, and the pretense that he didn’t “know what [he] was doing”? Nope. As Foley says, he knew EXACTLY what he was doing.

Black is as aggressive as Tunney, if not more so, fool with odd hands as Jason Alexander starts in on his teasing of the dealer, Christine. In previous games, Alexander would stand and go to the dealer’s side, kissing the dealer’s head, hugging him or her, and feigning bribery by affection.

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Celebrity Poker Showdown: Who Woulda Thought it Would be so Funny?

Celebrity Poker Showdown: Who Woulda Thought it Would be so Funny? by Roxanne McDonald

Celebrity Poker Showdown, Tournament 8, Game 3, is no exception to the fact that poker is one of the few equalizers between common folk and celebrities.

The players are fun and funny. There’s Brett Butler (Grace Under Fire star, Last Comic Standing judge, My Name is Earl’s mother-in-law), Doug E. Doug (Cool Runnings and Cosby, for starters), Fred Savage (The Wonder Years star, Crumbs co-star), Ida Siconolfi (winner of online poker tournament at Bravo.com), and Jennifer Tilly (numerous films such as Bound, as well as Family Guy character voice).

When you watch the show, you might at first hedge when the players are introduced and you find all five are straight actors or performers and think there will be no humor or, at the least, levity. Of course, Brett Butler is one of the funniest, most sarcastic comediennes in the biz, but besides being fairly docile tonight, she gets sent to the loser’s lounge first, with Doug E. Doug (making the phenom of two players getting booted in one hand only the fourth occurrence ever on the show).

But of all the likely entertaining players, Jennifer Tilly makes this episode worthwhile:

wearing a hot peachy orange lace dress that is cut down to the table her boobs rest on, she consistently refers to her “boobs popping out” and babbles incessantly. Third to get booted, though, she is also praised by Phil, who says he really likes the way she played.

It’s down to Ida and Fred, both fairly solemn tonight. Dave Foley ad libs, his usual injecting his usual barbs that make the show a blast to watch. (Kevin Pollack is the alternate host, sometimes confused with Kevin Spacey, but a successful stand-up and filmic comic who also brings cheeky fun to Celebrity Poker Showdown.)

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