Dry Bar Comedy+ Review

I've been watching a lot of Dry Bar Comedy on YouTube lately. And I really like it. I must be oblivious because I didn't realize they also had a paid service.

So I figured this would be a great time to dive in and check it out.

My big question is: what does the service offer that YouTube (for free) doesn't? My hope is there's a lot of great comedy awaiting me.

A couple years ago I stumbled on the Dry Bar YouTube channel on accident. I didn't know what it was, but the name was interesting. I was thinking it was perhaps a comedy club that didn't serve alcohol.

Soon I learned it was also a place for clean comedy, which was a great relief and blessing to me. I love comedy, but I had been watching less of it because the big headliners tend to be very graphic and often do "cheap" humor (no real thought and hitting the usual tropes).

Overall, I've laughed a lot watching Dry Bar Comedy on YouTube and I'm very thankful it exists.

Alright, let's get into it.

According to the website, you can view the Dry Bar Comedy+ service on:

• Apple TV
• Roku
• Android TV
• fireTV
• Xbox
• chromecast
• iPhone / iPad devices
• Android devices
• Desktop computer

That's pretty much everything.

This is a paid service.

At the time of this writing, Dry Bar Comedy+ is either $5.99 per month or $53.99 per year (comes out to $4.50 monthly).

With this price you get unlimited access to the service, which has over 250 original Dry Bar Comedy shows according to the website.

The subscription page says they have new content weekly (see more on this at the end of my review).

You can subscribe to Dry Bar Comedy+ via the web or an app.

I recommend you use the app because at the time of this writing both the iOS and Android apps had an option for a 14-day trial, which is great.

Unfortunately, the website was void of this offer.

So if you have the choice, seek out the trial first.

From the main site, you can click on the "subscribe" button to be taken to the subscribe page.

I'm not sure if it was just me, but I couldn't get the page to load in Safari. There were some page errors.

I was able to get the page to load in Firefox.

Because of the 14-day trial, I elected to subscribe via the iOS app on the iPhone.

Basically you just download the app and tap on the "Start free trial" button and choose whether you want a monthly or annual subscription when your trial ends.

Another reason I like subscribing via Apple or Google is I know I can cancel easily. Some places make it very challenging to cancel. The only time I don't subscribe via one of these two is when there's a premium charge applied. For example, the website is $5.99 a month, but the iOS app says $6.99 a month.

Once you've got your trial or subscription activated, you'll need to create the account to access the service.

Pretty simple. Just add your name, email and password.

Success!

I'm now registered and can access the content.

Let's dive in a little and see what's offered.

Depending on the device you're watching on, you may want to go to the settings tab (or "profile").

In here you may have some options to go over.

For example, on the iPhone, I can choose these options:

1. Hide resume watching now
2. Enable dark theme
3. HD Downloads
4. Only download on Wi-Fi
5. Stream quality
6. Begin playback automatically
7. Autoplay next video
8. Background audio playback

On the Apple TV, the only option available has to do with autoplay.

I spent some time logging into various devices (web, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV) and playing videos so I could test the service.

The web and the app for each device worked very well for me. I did notice some reviews on the Apple store complaining about a sluggish app, but those where a year or so back, so either the app is much better now or those were isolated cases. And of course a slow app could also be to a user's phone choice, a bloated system, network connection, etc.

As I browsed around I was pleased that Dry Bar Comedy+ has a lot of comedy shows to enjoy. They said 250+ on the website, but it seems like there might be more.

Also there's a handy playlist feature so you can go through the content and add shows to your list for later playback. I love these types of features because sometimes I find things I don't want to watch just yet, but I don't want to forget about them.

The only downside with the playlist feature is that you only have a single playlist. It's not a deal breaker for me, but it definitely is a downside.

I love making custom lists: themes, topics and random.

This is something I hope will change in the future.

Overall the web and apps are easy to navigate and use.

If you know what you want to watch, you can use the search feature to find a comic or collection.

It looks like the search works best if you know what you want. In a test I tried to search for "boats" thinking I'd get comedy shows that either mentioned boats, had a boat theme or something like that.

Instead I got 1 result and I'm not seeing boats anywhere in the name or description.

I then typed in "travel" and got 7 results, so it appears the search feature is best used for looking up a comic's name or a word in the show's title.

Another thing I did was look up comedy shows both here and on the free YouTube channel to see if it was the same content. As far as I can tell, this "plus" service has far more content and most of what I looked for wasn't on YouTube.

There may be a small amount of these shows on the VidAngel service, which is a paid service that allows you to filter specific content, such as violence, sexuality and gore, of popular TV shows & movies on Amazon & Netflix (see my review series here: VidAngel Review: Overview).

I'm pretty excited to start watching more comedy through the Dry Bar Comedy+ app.

If I had to nitpick and find some downsides, the two I'd list would be:

1. The lack of multiple playlists, which I mentioned earlier.

2. The lack of dates on the shows. This isn't a deal breaker for me, but I really don't like entertainment shows without the filmed dates. I can understand why they might hide the dates (content appears fresher), but I really wish the dates were there.

One main reason for the dates is I like to know the time context for the show. Sometimes I want to watch comedy from the 90s and sometimes I want something current and relevant today.

I won't ding them for the lack of dates just because everything else seems great to me and I can live without it.

So is it worth it?

Well, that's really a financial question. I do think the annual price is worth it (if you have the $50ish). Even if they didn't add any more content, there's more than enough here to justify the money for a year.

I enjoy their comedy shows a lot and my wife and I can easily sit there watching a handful in a row.

Also, according to their subscription page on the web, your subscription helps the comics directly. Basically, it keeps things going. So if you love Dry Bar Comedy, it's really worth it to give them your support.

I know I will be getting an annual membership when my trial expires.

The services adds new content weekly, which is great. The downside is that since early 2020 there's been a worldwide pandemic going on that caused the shutdown and/or limiting of many gatherings and at the time of this writing (mid-2021) it's still ongoing.

As a result, it's probably challenging for Dry Bar Comedy to create current shows, which means the "new" content is a mix of anything they can do that's truly recent and other items that are new to the service, such as some shows from early 2020 that were never added to the "plus" subscription.

But I'm understanding of the times and fine with it as there's plenty of great comedy shows on the service for the money.

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