Comic Dane Cook turns boring facts into hilarious jokes on his new disc

Although the movies "Employee of the Month," "Mr. Brooks," "Good Luck Chuck" and "Dan in the Real Life" were happy to have him, his loyal fans couldn't help but ask what happened to their sharp and witty comic.

Well, ask no more.

Dane Cook is back and making his fans laugh so hard that they had better keep an extra pair of pants and an oxygen tank on hand.

Cook's stand-up comedy skills haven't diminished even though he took a break from the main stage to be in the Hollywood spotlight. His newest CD, "Rough Around the Edges," continues his unique humor in which Cook takes seemingly boring facts of life that anyone can relate to and turns them into jokes to remember.

Cook starts off the CD with a nostalgic tale from his childhood, describing his disappointment at not being able to visit "Benson's Animal Farm." The skit would not be complete, however, without the amusing dramatization of his father having the heart attack that ensues.

Cook then steps up the intensity in his jokes to the slightly appalling, yet hilarious humor that he's become known for.

In "Regrets," he makes witty insights into instances when people wish they had kept their mouths shut and recalls an situation where he made a promise on his unborn child's life that he did not eat his friend's ice cream.

Then in "War Flute," Cook takes the CD down a whole alley of light, humorous personal observations. In this skit, Cook claims that he was a soldier in the Civil War and a pharaoh in past lives. He then talks about the role of the flutists and the drummers in battle, and goes off on a funny tangent about the creepy, smileless pictures people took during the Civil War era.

The real clincher of this CD, however, is "15 Cents."

Here, Cook describes what he calls "the needy kids" commercial, which just about every television viewer has experienced. This is the ad that makes viewers feel guilty when they see underprivileged children from all over the world playing in "puddles with tumbleweeds." Cook then explains the comical reason why nobody donates the 15 cents that could "send these kids to Oxford."

The only real complaint with Cook's latest disc is that it lacks those one-line zingers that can be quoted to death, as in past skits like "The BK Lounge," "The Friend that Nobody Likes" or "Car Alarm." Still, "Rough Around the Edges" is a strong CD that provides over an hour of nonstop laughter, oxygen tank or no.