The supposed proposed show elicits this response from a left-wing blogger:
Smart bloggers and blog readers know that…
… this (â€Âthe daily show for the Fox News audienceâ€Â) will not work. Chiefly because most right wingers have no sense of humor. The ones that do the only laugh at racist jokes.
Hahahahaha! Bite me, whitey!
Actually, I kind of agree with him, but not for the same reasons. I think that conservatives have to be more intellectual with their humor. They can’t expect the studio audience, a la Jon Stewart or Garrison Keillor, to laugh just because they say something cuttingly troothy about their political opponents. It would have to contain far more self-irony. It is the flip-side to the equation why liberal pundits don’t generally score well on talk radio.
Sadly (for me) I had this idead a few years ago. Only I pitched it to Rightalk radio, who was for it before we actually got on air. Then suddenly they wanted something completely else.
Hey. Think they need writers? Or a correspondent? I look totally boss in cutoffs.
Indeed. The subtle irony and existential black humor of Larry the Cable guy would be lost on a mainstream audience.
To examine the core of what the Daily Show really is (or rather what level it occupies in the comsic scale of humor) simply consider that the conservative equivalent of it is South Park.
I think you should go for it, Jeff. And I love the neologism idead. Mind if I steal it, for an idea that arrives DOA? Like, say, dirt-berm balloon works protective barriers for Israel?
But I thought the lefties were the champions of the blue collar guys, PFC Leftard?
Wait. It’s the southern thing, isn’t it?
Man. Sometimes I pity you having to reconcile all your cartoons.
BECAUSE OF THE NUANCE!
Have at it, Dan.
I like Achmanidididididididjihad,though.
Of course they are right, you know. I was just reading through Kos and I found veritable fount of intellectual humor without bigotry, hatred or any of the other conservative meanness ….
Oh … Oh … Oh My! …
um … never mind …
Wilhelm: We all know that conservatism is a kind of adorable albeit dangerous form of bigotry that must be nurtured out of the weak human conscience by uni(re)versal health(s)care, abortions, piece rallies, public (re)education, and public scoldings.
Ugh, ok. Even that is too smarmy for me. I need to wash out my cranial cavity with Purell.
-Olaf
Mighty Olaf:
I just don’t want to know, but the hemlock is handy…
After re-reading above, go with Clorox Bleach. Save some for me…
All your racist humor are belong to us.
By “black humor,” did Leftard mean stuff like Hamsher minstrelizing Joe Lieberman? Because conservatives clearly did not find that funny.
fly because most right wingers have no sense of humor. The ones that do the only laugh at racist jokes.
I’m gonna have to go beat the gay, black guy I keep chained in the basement to get over that insult.
It would have to contain far more self-irony. It is the flip-side to the equation why liberal pundits don’t generally score well on talk radio.
What was the name of that comedian who did Monday Night Football for a season? Conservative and intelligent? Hilarious. Can’t remember his name at the moment, though.
Personally I don’t watch any humor shows on television. Life is too short to waste much time watching tv.
Funny? Aw, c’mon.
Just look at PW. Nobody here has a sense of humor. That’s why I come here. God forbid that I ever feel like laughing out loud.
I come because I know you’re all a bunch of stuffed shirts! I am stimulated by the plethora of hate!
And yes it’s true! I only laugh at minorities. You know. They are much funnier than the KosKids. Eh?
Carin: Dennis Miller is the guy you’re thinking of.
I’m one of those idiot convervatives who thinks the guys who did the blue collar comedy tour were all funny. A lot of other dumbasses think the same thing, since the tour cleared a truckload of money. I guess their humor must be chock-full of hate, too (after all, they’re conservatives), but I’m too bigoted and racist to see it.
The best humor, and the humor that transcends time, is non-partisan and universal. Doesn’t mean it can’t be political in nature (Will Rogers regularly poked fun at politicians)
Look at some of Bill Cosby’s standup routines from the 70’s dealing with birth, raising kids, being drunk …. they can still make everyone laugh.
The Blue Collar stuff works because it is self-deprecating and deals with culture, not partisan ideas.
Listening to Roseanne Barr screech “I hate the president” over and over again for a couple minutes is just not going to drive people to buy the DVD to share with their kids in a couple of decades.
Please don’t attach the Blue Collar schmucks to conservatism. We’ve got enough idiots in the GOP leadership without looking to gravy fettishers for cultural cues.
The reason that a right wing Daily Show won’t work is not because conservatives don’t have a sense of humor, but because it’d always look like a “me, too” rebuttal of the Daily Show. The whole idea of satire news is already worn out anyway. The original Daily Show with Craig Kilborn was far less ideological, and was consequently farm more enjoyable to a wider audience. Stewart is smart and funny, but the show has slowly evolved into little more than a predictably pro-left propaganda tool since he took over. It’ll either be seriously revamped in a few years, or it’ll be gone.
Fox already does a parody of the news. It’s called Fox & Friends.
THERE IS NO TERRORIST THREAT!!!!!!
Margaret Cho comes to mind as well. She actually USED to be funny – when she dealt with Asian/ American cultural clashes.
Now that the Dems are in some form of control, won’t Stewart be almost required to include their policy gaffes in the routine now?
$10 for the first lefty blog to lable Jon Stewart a “Republican shill” when that day comes…
Political satire, much like the filibuster, is strictly reserved for liberals and liberals only.
P. J. O’Rourke isn’t funny? Who knew.
There’s no lack of funny non-leftists. Dennis Miller is still the same kind of (non-)funny he always was; partisan tools just stopped pretending to get his references when he came out as a non-tool. Jeff, Ace, Allah, Treacher, Iowahawk, Cosh, and [your favorite here] could obviously do a funny show (though not on Fox). Duh on all that. That’s not the problem.
Political humor no longer exists. Making fun of politics does, still, kind ofâ€â€not enough, only South Park is above-ground, and it doesn’t go wide if it’s not partisan (while lying that it isn’t)â€â€but the genre’s basically dead.
I blame Bill Hicks. Or, really, the comedians who most loudly claim his influence. Not his fault. He was great, but his on-the-ground legacy is the turning of leftish political “humor” wholly away from humor.
There’s no comedy in David Cross, The Daily Show, Garofalo, etc. They run creepy hate-rallies, have audiences cheering amplified shouts of popular bigotries, barking like circus seals when the fish fliesâ€â€or worse, cheering and adopting the bigotries, together, like politicians’ rhetoric is designed to have you do. That’s not comedy. No one cheers comedy.
It wasn’t so shitty when Hicks did it, because his audience hadn’t self-selected for agreement (though it eventually would have, if he hadn’t died during his transformation), so not so many cheered, and there was still an arty provocation thereâ€â€if not many laughs. Now there’s neither.
Even the best lefty comedians just stop making jokes when they do political material nowâ€â€Patton Oswalt’s recent horrifying 180 away from saying any funny things comes to mindâ€â€and they don’t seem to care that the crowd isn’t laughing. They’re still loud. Louder than a laughing crowd, in fact. So it’s not like the lure is a mystery.
The absence of rightists from the current wave of popular political non-comedy is, if anything, evidence of a contrarian virtue, not a defect. It may be the best evidenceâ€â€despite what elected Republicans actually doâ€â€that conservative idividualist rhetoric isn’t totally bullshit. Only ~99%.
I’m developing a character who will quit his job as a university professor to do leftist partisan stand-up comedy.
He will be horrifying bad. But let’s see who notices…
Jeff,
You need to rework your proposal and pitch it to the producers of this show.
Forget about appearing and focus on the writing, which will make or break the show in the long run. You could act as a clearinghouse for the material.
By using the same format as your blog to present 4 or 5 topics, along with an open topic, you and your commentors could use their collective political acumen and wit to write the jokes for the show. As with any thread, the material could be refined as the comments proceed. You would then present a compilation of the best jokes to the show for them to choose from. The producers would pay you for each piece used and you would pay whoever came up that particular piece (less your 15%) based on timestamp sequence of the post.
It would be next to impossible for the creators of this show to find competent conservative comedy talent on the left coast and certainly far fewer that are as attuned to the political activities of the day. You (and your group of regulars) are their only hope.
Just think. We could make fun of brown people and get paid for it. Is this a great country or what?
It’s like they say in Final Fantasy:
Gnomish bread: see the world!
At which point, be sure to supercharge your Premium Cattle Prod as a deluge that would dwarf the worst trollstorm rumbles through teh internet to your digital door, a foamimg mob of comedy writer wannabees jumping up and down, digital gags and sketches held over their heads, all sense of any coolness bleached from their ‘tube demeanor.
Now if you would just E-Mail me the super secret Goldstein E-Mail address, we can avoid all of that hullabaloo.
You’re right. If one supports the minimum wage, it necessarily follows that one must also like Larry the Cable Guy. This original and profound critique has truly exposed progressivism for the inauthentic pose that it is.
BJT,
The foaming mobs of comedy writer wannabes might hold a few talented writers.
They would be in the “outer officeâ€Â, with those of proven ability doing the bulk of the work in the invitation-only inner sanctum. Once one of the foaming brood comes up with a few usable (read profitable) lines, he would be given the key code to source of right wing humor.
Comedy is easy. Making money on comedy is hard work.
I don’t think he was talking about minimum wage, Pfc. Leftard.
Interesting that you made that connection, though.
So Leftard’s another mouth-breather determined to live down to his name? Or is it just another disguise for actus?
Because we all know Dennis Miller’s career skyrocketed after he decided to turn to the right.
Mkultra,
Miller tried to “wing it†on a daily basis, which is hard to do even with the natural hilarity of liberal targets.
Stewart has a team of a couple dozen high paid writers just for his material, along with additional people handling regular features.
The trick isn’t just coming up with political jokes, but fitting the style of humor to the person who’s presenting it. Stewart does bits that Maher would die with. It takes a group of writers who know what will work for their guy.
Miller’s HBO features worked because he had enough time and talent to work out each bit, but you’re right about cable show – it sucked.
“Has no sense of humor” is usually “doesn’t laugh at MY jokes” in reality.
jwest:
So we are left with this great shining vision of Holy Grail proportions (the Arthurian classic, not Monty Python!) The digitally unwashed PW masses huddle abjectly in the “outer room” feeding dialogue to the great PAN-GAG Goldstein, plucked with his Tequilla dripping claws. He mercilessly mocks most of the work for the pathetic hack that it is.
But, for a sainted few, a door opens and out pours a bright light, curiously tinged with red, where the vague yet discernable shape of a dancing ‘dillo undulates the light rays. They are led to the inner sanctum by Dan Collins, wearing a leather harness and fishnet stockings, to be presented to the PAN-GAG. As they cower at his taloned feet, he confers his blessing upon them by having the dog barf on their shoes. Shots all around and the script proceeds a pace, concentrations unbroken by the wailing and whimpering of the wannbees left behind.
Sounds cool. You wanna sign up?
Huh?
If I remember correctly, it was you who associated that particular “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” stalwart with conservatives and right wingers.
And yet, conservatives, when they govern, only cater to the rich, right? So what are you saying? That all these blue collar people you champion with your desires for a minimum wage increase are too stupid to know what’s good for them and vote Democrat? Or is it that blue collar workers do vote Democrat—just not the southern ones.
You know—those godbothering beer guzzlers in the Ozarks who would rather make a little bit less, so long as they get to keep saying “darkies”.
Like I said, it must be difficult keeping your cartoons reconciled.
BJT,
Exactly!
It’s uncanny how you described Dan Collins just the way I pictured him. As for the rest of the scenario, it’s pretty much how the real world of comedy writing works – only not so benevolent.
After the show is a hit, we can all buy matching Morgans and drive down from the Hollywood Hills each day to pen jokes like the real writers do. Until then, a web based team makes a little more sense.
Um … just a *weeee* bit scary that you had that in your mind. I wept bloody tears as I wrote it.
I don’t think that the matching Morgans are going happen. Jeff will end up signing a three picture deal with Paramount to do “mockumenatries”, leaving the little people like us who got him there SOOL, dam it! In the middle of the second “mock” he implodes in a cascade of red pills, expensive champaign and gourmet fajitas. He moves back to Colorado a broken man, only to discover that the HOA has torn down his shed, the dog has ran off with a bitchin’ little toy poodle after urine-scudding his prize azalea and the ‘dillo has been running an underage prostitution ring out of his basement.
The healing will take many months…
Now that the Dems are in some form of control, won’t Stewart be almost required to include their policy gaffes in the routine now?
Has Jon Stewart gotten into the Alcee Hastings for Committee Chair fun and frivolity yet?
That all these blue collar people you champion with your desires for a minimum wage increase are too stupid to know what’s good for them and vote Democrat?
Bingo.
Hang out with the Left-faith true believers is to witness people of certitude in that those that disagree with them are in need of being “saved” whether they want to or not.
And the Left has had the
imamsjudges to do it.The more politically Left the “comedian” the less “fun” they seem to be having on stage.
As Carin notes above … I don’t recall seeing any recent Margaret Cho routine where she actually SMILED with joy.
I think it’s safe to say that Larry the Cable Guy is generally considered to be conservative humor. You disagree? My only observation was that, contra Dan Collins, Larry the Cable Guy is a very popular conservative comedian not known for subtlety. This raving about leftist hypocrisy vis-a-vis working-class whites isn’t really germane.
Some working-class people vote Democratic, others vote Republican. Each individual has his or her own reasons. The minimum wage is important to some of them, gay marriage is more important to others. What point do you think you’re making?
You mean like the cartoon leftist who pretends to be a champion of the working-class but hates rednecks? I think that cartoon may even have a name. Or is it only leftists who draw cartoons?
BJTexas,
As if there isn’t enough crazy shit going on now ,as it is , having Goldstein do mocumentaries would probably qualify as the beginning of the end. BTW (sorry Dan) the Collins bit was damned funny.
Ken Adelman could be at least as funny as Baghdad Bob. After all, he has been just as wrong. And unlike Bob, Ken’s friends make sure he still gets on TV.
You could call it the “Aipac Comedy Hour.”
Absolutly!
Why, the balloon fence material alone is pure gold!
Let us not speak of the utter crappiness that is the recent career trajectory of George Carlin.
TW: He’s an aging hippie; I blame the COMPANY he travels with for the change.
You mean like the cartoon leftist who pretends to be a champion of the working-class but hates rednecks
Well, I always did consider JOhn KErry cartoonish.
McGehee, you said you wouldn’t tell, you liar! I can’t help it; it’s an Irish thing.
But there’s already colbert!
I know the cartoon leftist who pretends to be a champion of the working class but hates rednecks has a name. I just doubt it’s actually Pfc Leftard.
I’m betting that’s a pen name.
As for Larry the Cable Guy, I have no idea if he’s conservative or not. I don’t watch him—except as Mater in Cars, which I attribute to having a kid going on 3.
And I don’t know that I’d assume he’s conservative just because he wears a cutoff flannel and says “git ‘er done.”
You, however, seem to know his ouevre fairly well, so I’ll defer to you about his political leanings. But again, having not seen his act, I can’t really speak to whether or not his apparent self-mockery has existential underpinnings or not. Perhaps it does.
Or is it impossible for someone with a twang to engage in subtle irony and existential humor?
Clearly the left doesn’t have a monopoly on such sensibilities. Else how to explain Margaret Cho or Rosie O’Donnell? Or Rosanne Barr. Or, well, just about every leftwing comedian doing political humor.
Man, do I ever miss Mitch Hedberg and Steven Wright.
Snark isn’t intellect. But you’re right: he’s not as funny as Kerry the Label Guy.
Mort Sahl
(yah, I know, dating myself yet again … sheesh)
Well, michael moore IS fat, and chelsea WAS ugly. No truthiness there.
Amazing how Leftard assumes that working class Republicans think that way because of gay marriage. They could just disagree with him on the minimum wage.
Sorry, that should really be Kerry the Fable Guy.
Dan , et al , if no one ‘s said it today (or any other for that matter ) , you blog jackers are really finding your center. Keep it coming .
And actus is the intellectual equal of Maxine Waters. Let’s be complete.
Pie anyone?
Ooops, I’m a racist–because Maxine Waters is black and I just called her stupid. And we all know there are no stupid black people.
ugghh.
not because i want it to be a sucky failure, but because any time a conservative says, “we need a rightwing version of michael moore” or “we need a right wing version of…” this that or the other thing, its destined to be a sucky failure. air america began when a lefty said something like, “we need a lefteing version of rush limbaugh.”
why be derivative? are we setting out to confirm the conciet that conservatives lack creativity?
this is going to suck embarrassingly.
Jeff,
Larry the cable guy is definately right leaning, and funny as hell, I don’t care who you are. I highly recommend you check out one of his Comedy Cental shows.
Steven Wright , incidently, recently did a Comedy Cental show also. Still funny (and apolitical.)
For chrisssssake wishbone ,just don’t use the I word….. or for that matter the M word…..at least out loud.
Funny that, so does the daily show.
I see. You had no idea what I was talking about but felt it provided a springboard for you to make some non sequitur about leftist contempt for the working man.
Certainly they could. I never assumed otherwise. Is OHNOES a pen name, btw?
Please. He figured it out on his own. It’s not like the two-foot-long fork-toed boots didn’t give a slight clue.
I’m not entirely convinced you know what you’re talking about. You have spoken in no authoritative terms about Larry’s conservative humor. “is generally considered” being the only clause you used. The only difference I see here is that Mr. Goldstein admitted to not having watched Larry’s act, and you, having not yet admitted such a thing, chose to go on the offensive about that, perhaps to disguise your own ignorance of Larry’s act…
You’ve likened Larry’s act as conservative (In a discussion where liberal comedic acts are the likes of Stewart) and expressed indirect contempt on it as well. The logical jump isn’t that difficult to make.
But those were your examples. And, anyway you slice it, believing in raising the minimum wage vs. sanctity of marriage isn’t exactly a symmetric example, especially when one is in a battle of trying to avoid caricaturing. I can only use what words you give me, my friend.
– Somewhere tonight Michael Richards is getting very drunk……
Tuned in to Jay Leno for the first time in a year or so, just to see if he would spread the love around to Dems now that they won an election finally.
Nope.
Six jokes about how stupid Bush is, not a hint that democrats exist.
I don’t think a conservitive version of the daily show will work. Apparently, it’s very difficult to make jokes about democrats.
Present company exepted.
Um…guys? I was refering to the PAN_GAG’S taloned feet, not Dan’s but, hey, if the extended two-toed boot fits…
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…..hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, oh me. Yes as every good stand up comedian knows only the cerebral stuff plays in the red states. The Blue Collar comedy tour, they hate and deride that lowbrow offal, I mean it has “Blue” right there in the name! They much more love the educated wit of Dennis Miller, who has made so much money playing to conservative audiences who get to stare at him confused and unable to understand his references, or even to understand why if they did get those references, his jokes would be funny. A fine point you make!