Salon and Paton Oswalt spar...over Asian joke

I think Paton Oswalt is one of the funniest comedians out there...his stand-up is among the best I have ever seen. He decided to Tweet a pretty lame joke about the news station going with the fake names of the flight crew on the plane that wrecked in San Francisco and the gloves came off.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/13/patton_oswalt_makes_asian_name_joke_in_response_to_racist_ktvu_news_report/

FWIW, Salon really does need to lighten up here. So the joke wasn't that funny...was it really racist?

 

I think his joke was hilarious.

He's a comedian. If you don't find him funny, that's your deal, but he's going for the laugh.

The guy doing news who makes this joke deserves whatever he gets. With most comedians, for every person who laughs, there's someone else who is offended.

I remember when Sarah Silverman got butchered for Asian jokes she made on Conan and she was asked later about Guy Aoki who was leading the protest against her or whatever and she said, "I just hope he doesn't make pee pee in my Coke" and I fell over from laughing so hard.

 

Those comeback tweets were pretty damn funny.

 

I got what he was going for; Salon did not. And all the bloviating they want to do about how he was targeting the Asian name instead of the channel (It was clear to most people who read it that it was a dig at teh station) doesn't make them right.

 

I'm not sure how Salon (which I've never heard of until 1/2 minute ago) can call the news report racist. They did the report with the idea it was a real report. Call the people at that station gullible, call them stupid, but you can't call them racist.

 

That was my thought, Gator. I don't know how you can call the station racist when it obvioously just has a Ron Burgandy-like anchor that will read anything put in front of him.

And Oswalt is one guy I would not want to lock horns with in a battle of wits. Dude is sharp and funny as hell.

 

Who's Paton Oswalt?

 

Patton Oswalt seems to be one of the more real, more level-headed and non-racist/sexist comedians out there. And I think he's hilarious.

So unless there's some pretty damning evidence that cannot be interpreted differently, if it's a fight between Oswalt and anyone else, I'll take Oswalt's side.

 

Patton Oswalt sometimes writes for Slate, I believe.

Hmmmm ...

 

Stand-up comedian who created the "Comedians of Comedy" tour with Zach Galafinakis and Brian Poshean. Also played Spence on "The King of Queens."

 

AND ... Officer Bob on Justified.

Get my Go Bag.

 

Yeah, he's probably best known as Spence on King of Queens or the voice of the Rat in Ratatouille, but he was also great in Big Fan and Young Adult.

I'll go as far as to call him one of the top 10 or 5 touring comics out there.... I saw him open for David Cross about a decade ago, and I thought, "Oh, the guy from King of Queens..." and he destroyed. Very smart comic. I've seen him a few times since then, he's hilarious...