Why can't conservatives do funny?

[ifilus]

Starting Sunday on Fox News, the right wing attempts to take on 'The Colbert Report' and 'The Daily Show'.

"We're sort of the antidote to all the other shows that really don't go after the targets we go after," says the conservative executive producer Joel Surnow, best known as executive producer of Fox's "24." "We're sort of, like, unabashedly coming from a certain point of view.

"This is a show for people who watch other comedy shows and say, 'Yeah, OK, but why aren't you doing jokes about Nancy Pelosi? Why aren't you doing jokes about Ted Kennedy? Why aren't you doing jokes about all the global warming meetings that are being canceled by snowstorms?' "

Of course, you do see jokes about John Kerry on "The Daily Show," and NBC's "Saturday Night Live" has tweaked Pelosi.

Says Surnow: "We're not looking to be balanced. Those shows are, and we're not. That's fine for them to want to go after everybody. For our show, it's a specific thing that we are delivering."

 

[tyler durden 71351]

Here's the problem. You can't be conservative/liberal first, funny second. Saturday Night Live, John Stewart, Colbert, Letterman, etc. -- they take shots at whoever is in power and whoever deserves it. You can't say "Oh, well I'm not going to make fun of Bush, I'm going to make fun of Obama instead." When you become political first, funny second, the end result is Mallard Filmore.

And I'm convinced Yawn is a joke. No one can be that stupid.

 

[Write-brained]

You can't be intentionally funny when your job is to scare the bejeezus out of everyone ... otherwise Pat Robertson would be the funniest guy on the planet.

 

[BYH]

Starting Sunday on Fox News, the right wing attempts to take on 'The Colbert Report' and 'The Daily Show'.

"We're sort of the antidote to all the other shows that really don't go after the targets we go after," says the conservative executive producer Joel Surnow, best known as executive producer of Fox's "24." "We're sort of, like, unabashedly coming from a certain point of view.

"This is a show for people who watch other comedy shows and say, 'Yeah, OK, but why aren't you doing jokes about Nancy Pelosi? Why aren't you doing jokes about Ted Kennedy? Why aren't you doing jokes about all the global warming meetings that are being canceled by snowstorms?' "

...

Says Surnow: "We're not looking to be balanced. Those shows are, and we're not. That's fine for them to want to go after everybody. For our show, it's a specific thing that we are delivering."

The sound of one man laughing? That would be Hondo. He's slapping his knees at this. "Aha! Global warning jokes! Finally, a show that speaks to me!"

I love how Surnow says his show is an antidote to all those left-leaning comedy shows, then says, well, yeah, those shows DO tweak everyone, but ours is going to tweak the left.

And is anyone else amused that a Fox News show is advertising the fact that it is NOT balanced? Oh, the irony.

Stick to what you know best, Joel: Producing the most unwittingly liberal show on Fox.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

That Surnow is a dolt is obvious from The New Yorker piece about 24.
Conservatives can be funny. PJ O'Rourke cracks me up. THESE conservatives, however, are not remotely funny. As someone else said, they're conservatives first and funny second, just as poor Air America is liberal first and radio second, which is why it's struggling and independent liberal radio hosts, like Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller, are not.

 

[slappy4428]

It would be like watching Worker and Parasite instead of Itchy and Scratchy...
I can hear Krusty now... "What the Hell was That?"

 

[cranberry]

What about Dennis Miller? Yes, I see what you mean.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

A sense of humor is a sign of intelligence.

O'Rourke is the exception that proves the rule.

 

[Duane Postum]

Anyone who can produce the National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper parody can think however he likes. HIM I'd listen to.

 

[Bob Cook]

There are clips floating around the Internets, but I won't do you the disservice of linking to them.

However, I will say one includes a sketch in which the real Rush Limbaugh and the real Ann Coulter are playing President and Vice President. And Limbaugh has the temerity to talk about his defeated opponent, Howard Dean (Howard Dean?????), as now having time to get his needed medication. Should a notorious pill-popper be delivering that line?

Also, the hosts look like every smarmy Young Republican you've ever hated, even if you were a Young Republican yourself. They remind me of the "look at me being serious" guy.

 

[heyabbott]

"This is a show for people who watch other comedy shows and say, 'Yeah, OK, but why aren't you doing jokes about Nancy Pelosi? Why aren't you doing jokes about Ted Kennedy? Why aren't you doing jokes about all the global warming meetings that are being canceled by snowstorms?' "

Dude must have missed about eight years' minutes worth of SNL back in the '90s. :

fixed

 

[Ace]

stop it, h-a, you're killin' me.

 

[SoSueMe]

That was not funny. It was not delivered well.

 

[Double Down]

A laugh track? Ouch. I know wealthy Republicans are used to paying people to laugh at their jokes, but c'mon. You can do better than "B.O. Magainze" followed by supposed uproarious laughter from the audience.

Painful.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Is this the show that Olbermann was talking about last night that spliced in footage of Africans dancing between clips of Obama announcing his run for the presidency?

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Is this the show that Olbermann was talking about last night that spliced in footage of Africans dancing between clips of Obama announcing his run for the presidency?

That would be the one, yes,

 

[alleyallen]

Is this the show that Olbermann was talking about last night that spliced in footage of Africans dancing between clips of Obama announcing his run for the presidency?

That would be the one, yes,

Wow. Just wow.

 

[Freelance Hack]

"This is a show for people who watch other comedy shows and say, 'Yeah, OK, but why aren't you doing jokes about Nancy Pelosi? Why aren't you doing jokes about Ted Kennedy? Why aren't you doing jokes about all the global warming meetings that are being canceled by snowstorms?' "

Perhaps it's because the snowstorms are being caused by the global warming. See, global warming melts ice and snow up north, sending moisture into the air, which is carried south by air currents and deposited on the United States in various places.

Ironic, maybe. Funny? Not so much.

 

[The Big Ragu]

In Alexandra Pelosi's documentary about evangelicals, she spent a lot of time on the "conservative stand-up comedian" Brad Stine. At one point he started bitching about how if he was a gay, black "liberal" he'd have his own TV sitcom, even though more Americans are "like him." But because he is "the conservative comedian" he can't catch his break. She put enough footage of his act in the documentary, though, for anyone with a sense of humor to realize that he hasn't caught a break because he just plain sucks. he was the most unfunny comedian ever to grab a microphone.

The real comedy in the documentary was Ted Haggard. He's interviewed throughout, and toward the end, he goes off on homosexuals. She froze the film with him in mid sentence, and put text on the screen saying, "A year after this was filmed..."

Now *THAT* was funny.

 

[alleyallen]

In Alexandra Pelosi's documentary about evangelicals, she spent a lot of time on the "conservative stand-up comedian" Brad Stine. At one point he started bitching about how if he was a gay, black "liberal" he'd have his own TV sitcom, even though more Americans are "like him." But because he is "the conservative comedian" he can't catch his break. She put enough footage of his act in the documentary, though, for anyone with a sense of humor to realize that he hasn't caught a break because he just plain sucks. he was the most unfunny comedian ever to grab a microphone.

The real comedy in the documentary was Ted Haggard. He's interviewed throughout, and toward the end, he goes off on homosexuals. She froze the film with him in mid sentence, and put text on the screen saying, "A year after this was filmed..."

Now *THAT* was funny.

BWUHAHAHAHAHA! That IS funny!