Dane Cook had no shortage of adulation in Vancouver

With chiselled good looks and a cocky, frat-boy demeanour, there’s ample reason to dismiss Dane Cook as a real comedic powerhouse—especially if you happen to have a girlfriend who wouldn’t think twice about throwing her panties his way if she ever got within pitching distance of the Boston, Massachusetts, native. But despite all the reasons to hate, the hunky comedian was surprisingly likable as he ripped through his X-rated routine at the Orpheum on Monday night.

By no means did every bit produce the sidesplitting laughter that you might expect (or demand) from a guy with his amount of fanfare. But Cook’s spot-on delivery was more than enough to endear you to the loudmouth as he spent upward of 15 minutes laying the groundwork for wacky stories, like his ADD-riddled crime-scene-investigation tale, which dragged the audience down a rabbit hole of tangents and sidebars. To his credit, though, the former flame of Jessica Simpson—perhaps the most obvious reason to be skeptical of the guy—knows how to pepper his epic anecdotes with hilarious nuggets, so that the scattered rants were easily as rewarding as to-the-point zingers.

There was no shortage of nasty ex-girlfriend tirades—including one in which Cook reached into his “holster of hate” and proclaimed “BFB” (Big Fat Bitch) to be the insult du jour—or tips on how to guarantee your mugging victim doesn’t report the crime (baby dildo in the ear is the golden rule). By and large, the entire performance seemed to be geared to degenerates, with Cook rattling off pointers on where to ditch murder weapons (your neighbour’s utensil drawer, obviously) and where to blow your load when you’re banging a porn star in the bum (her purse—“that way she’ll remember you”).

But for all of Cook’s offensive swipes at HIV and autistic kids, he didn’t have to struggle for adulation in Vancouver—not once. Whether he was dealing with horny housewives screaming “I love you, Dane” or a bellowing fan in the balcony, whom the comedian likened first to the devil and then to Statler and Waldorf (the snide old hecklers from The Muppet Show), Cook was an easy sell in the packed-out theatre.

You really have to wonder, though: would the crowd have lapped up his zigzagging plot lines and indulgent back stories quite as frantically if Cook happened to be a slouchy, Costanza-type character? Thankfully for the comedian, he won’t ever have to find out.