Horrible. Just horrible.
Posted by Dan
February 20th, 2007 at 01:27pm
In News Please Stop It
So, I had heard about Fox News' spin on The Daily Show, The Half Hour News Hour, and of course I thought it was gross. Purely in theory it's gross. But then I saw the real thing and it's just a hundred times worse than you could ever imagine.
Watch a promo for the show here. And then, once you've prepared yourself, watch this clip.
Okay.
You back? Good. You've got a little bit of vomit on your upper lip.
First of all, the HHNH (almost the same name as a long-gone MTV show - The Half Hour Comedy Hour) is just not funny to an incredible degree and I feel like I can say that objectively. If they had some sharp comedic digs for the left, I'd like to think that I could at least recognize it and take it in stride. But no. It's very Jay Leno-y schtick delivered by two unfathomaby smug anchors.
Much of the reason why the Half Hour News Hour isn't funny is because it lays bare the creators' fundamental misunderstanding of the other side. Do liberals love cocaine? I guess so, according to their portrayal. We also have some sort of fascination with gay penguins, I guess (or does just adding gay plus penguin equal comedy gold?).
I'm just waiting for them to scream "We hate gay people! And Muslims! Hell, we hate non-Christians!" But you know it's not going to come to that. They're just going to say everything but that.
It'd be really easy to say that conservatives can't be funny. Really easy. But I don't know if I believe that. What is clear, though, is that this show is not good from any standpoint. If that is, in fact, the audience laughing during the segments, you can practically see their faces wincing from their strained over-laughing.
Umm. How is that even funny? I didn’t giggle, I didn’t smile, I only gasped in horror a few times. Good Christ! Maybe, as they tell me on YouTube, I just don’t “get” it.
And the Half-Hour Comedy Hour (Mario Joyner at the helm!) was KICK. ASS.
To be fair, I do kind of love gay penguins. Or maybe I just love the idea of gay penguins.
Props to you for taking a hit for the team and reporting back on the HHNH…I couldn’t bear to watch it, myself.
I think possibly the most remarkable thing is the laughter. The initial (and so very familiar pan) seems to show an audience, but then the laughter afterwards is obviously the meagre work of the crew, probably with cattle prods being stuck in their arses. And then, once it goes to the VT, suddenly the audience has become a stadium of 1970’s sitcom guffawing, and remarkably sounding like the very same laugh each time it appears.
Oh, and good work with the whole “black person is smelly”, Fox News. Really thought that through.
I am excited that Fox News is trying something different and new by creating a comedy show aimed at South Park conservatives. The other good place to find conservative comedy now is ourcountry.com and it will be great to have this program on the air too.
Funny without even reading these comments, I noticed the forced laughter as well. BO? That’s the best they could come up with? Lame!
Is that Jonathan Moore, former UN Ambassador? Or Christian vocalist?
Anyway, the term South Park conservative is ridiculous. South Park is and always has been extremely libertarian in its political views. And speaking as a tree-hugging-hippie liberal, I think South Park is one of the best satires to ever show on TV. Comparing it it to the comedy vacuum that is HHNH only makes the show seem worse.
If I were a conservative or a Republican, I wouldn’t waste my time defending this show, I would be clamoring for an actually funny conservative news satire. I’m sure it’s possible, although I’ve never seen it happen.
Dennis Miller, if I recall correctly, is a conservative (well, he is now). And he’s funny when he’s not trying to shout over John Madden. But he wouldn’t poke that steaming turd with a ten-foot stick.
Couldn’t they at least have made fun of Hillary’s hair or something? That would be a few years more relevant than a Marion Barry joke. Or maybe pointed out how John Kerry looks like Frankenstein. That’s a good one.