When I interviewed

the brilliant Jeffrey Ross recently, we talked briefly about the phenom of the Emmitt Smith roast where, like the Pam Anderson one, the focus easily shifted from the non-roastee, changing the momentum of the entire night.

A few people have emailed me of late with this YouTube clip since I wrote about insults and roasting, so I figured I would quickly share Ross's take on it and also make sure your life is enriched by watching Jamie Foxx doing the actual destroying.

Me: What is the best part about roasting?

Ross: In the end when comedians do shows there's a headliner, there's a middle act and then there's an MC, and when you roast you're up there with a dozen headliners and just think of the sheer entertainment quality. That's just a better show. You can go see somebody headline and do their own thing and talk about whatever they want and talk about themselves but when you go see a bunch of headliners all talking about the exact same subject the stakes are raised because that's much, much harder to do. If you go out at a roast you're just crossing stuff out the whole time, trying to improvise and write new material on the spot. A roast sort of has a narrative feel as opposed to a regular standup show that is just jokes jokes jokes jokes. If you watch on YouTube one of the popular downloads is this roast of Emmitt Smith produced by Shaq and one of my requirements of my contract was that I have to be the only white guy on the show.

But my point is that a young comedian really really bombed on the show and Jamie Foxx who was the MC and me and everybody else went up and made fun of him instead of the guest of honor so it became sort of like a play. Sometimes they edit out people who bomb on these roasts which I was always against. I realize that you need to protect the talent. I've been a producer, I produced the first four Comedy Central roasts, and you always have to protect, you know, your star talent but then again it is kind of fun to see all the bumps that go along the way, the joke doesn't go well, people get drunker, Courtney Love suddenly has her head in my lap, you know, ties and wardrobe become undone, and things sort of unravel, and I think those are also a big part of the entertainment factor of why these roasts are working.

Brace yourself, this is difficult to watch, but amazing: