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The Orlando Sentinel wrote:Jon Stewart knows how to do slashing comical commentary. He weighs in on what's happening, such as the media's bizarre coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death.
David Letterman knows how to do slashing comical commentary. He takes President Bush's awkward speeches and contrasts them with the lasting words of John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt.
Fox News Channel does not know how to do slashing comical commentary. The channel debuts "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" at 10 p.m. Sunday and repeats it at 10 p.m. Feb. 25. This show was meant to be a conservative version of "The Daily Show." It is a botch.
"The 1/2 Hour News Hour" does not comment on what is happening; it simply takes swipes at people. These people include Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama and Ed Begley Jr. Other joke topics are the ACLU, Time magazine, children's books and global warming.
Laughter, of an awfully canned variety, greets all the gags. Nothing happening on screen justifies these outbursts.
Hey, I'm all for a good dig at the high and the mighty. But these satirists fall short of hitting their targets with wit, timeliness or punch.
Which raises the point: What is a comedy show doing on a news channel?
"The 1/2 Hour News Hour" was developed by Joel Surnow, who has given the world many minutes of entertainment through "24." On the basis of the premiere, Surnow should stick to political thrillers.
At the top, Rush Limbaugh puts in a cameo as the U.S. president (the year is 2009); Ann Coulter drops in as his vice president. Then they disappear, a smart move.
Fox News Channel will offer a second episode at 10 p.m. March 4. If we're lucky, we'll never hear of this dreadful show again.
It was pretty bad, but after reading comments I expected worse. I think they actually did a passable job of duplicating some of TDS's format elements, but the basic premise seems to stem from a misunderstanding about what makes TDS so funny. While it has some sort of liberal bias, TDS is not - contrary to a number of baffling YouTube commenters - founded on the premise of "LOL REPUBLICANS ARE DUMB". It's very much directed at the media and political discourse in general, and apparently many of the people in that sphere still don't get it, even after Stewart raked Crossfire over the coals...
"You know, I have a great, wonderful, really original method of teaching antitrust law, and it kept 80 percent of the students awake. They learned things. It was fabulous." -- Justice Stephen Breyer
Ex-Cyber wrote:[...] but the basic premise seems to stem from a misunderstanding about what makes TDS so funny. While it has some sort of liberal bias, TDS is not - contrary to a number of baffling YouTube commenters - founded on the premise of "LOL REPUBLICANS ARE DUMB". It's very much directed at the media and political discourse in general, and apparently many of the people in that sphere still don't get it, even after Stewart raked Crossfire over the coals...
I was going to say more or less the same thing. The Daily Show works because it is operating on several levels: it is making fun of the events and people that comprise the news, it is making fun of what journalists and society TREAT as news, it is making fun of the form and execution of news reports, and it is making fun of news personalities themselves, typically in a self-deprecating fashion.
This show is just jabs at Democrats. None of the self-mocking, no working with actual current events (unless you want to call perennial talking points "current events"), no overblown mockery of media trends...just "HUR THIS GUY IS LIB'RAL N STOOPID HURRR. LOLZ DEMOCRATS."
The laugh track *really* drove home all the other little flaws. It was overblown, completely unbelievable, always cut in about a half-second too early, and just served to highlight the shoddiness and contrived nature in which the whole thing was being conducted. The hosts were bad actors, the whole thing was poorly written and looked like a lower-budget verson of Weekend Update, and...yeah. I just really don't have a kind word to say about it.
Then again, the only well done right-wing comedy show I can think of is South Park.
DaMadFiddler wrote:Then again, the only well done right-wing comedy show I can think of is South Park.
I Soiuth Park works for the same reason The Daily Show does: While it's pretty clear where their politics lie, they parody all sides. South Park has had no shortage of jokes at the expense of Republicans.
I think the thing that bugged me about it was how completely scripted the show was. Something about that guy just seemed robotic. It had more of a sitcom feel to it.
DaMadFiddler wrote:The laugh track *really* drove home all the other little flaws. It was overblown, completely unbelievable, always cut in about a half-second too early, and just served to highlight the shoddiness and contrived nature in which the whole thing was being conducted. The hosts were bad actors, the whole thing was poorly written and looked like a lower-budget verson of Weekend Update, and...yeah. I just really don't have a kind word to say about it.
Then again, the only well done right-wing comedy show I can think of is South Park.
I used to think Dennis Miller Live was a GREAT show. It was also mostly classically conservative, libertarian-esque. Then Dennis Miller became a lot less funny and a lot more of an asshole and a total Bush croney.
How to be a Conservative:
You have to believe everything that has ever gone wrong in the history of your country was due to Liberals.
I used to think Dennis Miller Live was a GREAT show. It was also mostly classically conservative, libertarian-esque. Then Dennis Miller became a lot less funny and a lot more of an asshole and a total Bush croney.
That show was really funny on occasion, but Dennis Miller is far too full of himself to be consistently entertaining...and always has been, to a degree. And over the years, he has gone increasingly insane. After the WTC attack, he turned into a mouthpiece/yes-man for the Bush administration.
Come to think of it, though, I'm a bit surprised they didn't tap him for this project. He would have been a much better fit.