Has anyone else seen Bill Maher’s new special on HBO? Just when I thought I couldn’t love him any more than I already do, he goes and does this. I’d say I want to marry him and have his babies, but he doesn’t believe in either of those things (and neither do I), so I’ll say this… I’d like to give him a nice big soul kiss for telling it like it is. I’d give my favorite bits, but right now they’re all my favorites. I know I sound like a blithering fangirl, and I usually don’t enjoy stand up this much, but…
Sigh. Maybe someone else will be more articulate. I’ll just say that Mr. Maher is the antidote for all the Dennis Millers, Bill O’Reillys and Rush Limbaughs of the world. Too bad there’s only one of him.
Maher was very funny and entertaining indeed, but was he really the antidote to all the Bill O’Reillys and Rush Limbaughs of the world? Lets not forget that he is only a comedian and hardly the serious news journalist like the folks at PBS, 60 minutes or NPR.
Bill Maher is also hardly an antidote to right wing comedians, because to be an antidote you would need a disease. Since Dennis Miller says he is a libertarian, the right has no funny political comedians that I know of. I really don’t see a problem here.
Dennis Miller, while he might be pro-Bush, is still funny. For me, that is all that counts in comedy.
You’re right, he’s not. There’s just not enough of him to go around, sadly. It is extremely rare for me to find anyone, much less a comedian or commentator, with whom I can agree so wholeheartedly, AND who is funny and honest without being mean-spirited. Put it this way-- for the hour and 20 minutes he was on, I felt better.
Oh crap, I had forgotten! Thank Og you were there! :dubious: And you say “only a comedian” as if it’s a bad thing or as if he’s not having an effect. More people probably watch HBO than listen to NPR (I could be way wrong on that).
Ever heard of a euphemism? If not, I can’t help you. I feel a bit plagued by the right wing commentators, myself, but hey, to each his own. This isn’t the forum for us to be arguing about this.
Dennis Miller, for me, is about as funny as a funeral these days (and his cancellation would suggest that I am not alone in this assessment), but that’s just my opinion. Clearly you posted to my OP with an axe to grind and had very little to say about Maher’s actual show. If you want to talk about I’m Swiss, cool. If not, open another thread in another forum.
Thank god I’m not the only one who loves Bill. I’m rarely a fangirl of anything. I pride myself on being tough to impress, and in real life as well as, well, on TV, I never find anyone who articulates what I think besides me. I’m used to being ignored by the mainstream, even though I never thought I was that weird. It’s just nice for a change to find out that I’m not alone in my views.
I’m damn close to agreeing with you about that. Jon Stewart is my second favorite, after Bill.
Notice I said right wing comedians, not commentators. I meant that if you thought he was an antidote to right wing comedians, you were wrong because there are no good right wing comedians to worry about.
Basically I just did not like the way you labeled Bill Maher and I was not sure whether you considered him the cure for right wing nutjob journalists or right wing comedians. I wanted to point out that we would need someone more credible than Bill Maher to stop conservatives from watching Fox News and that the right wing is somehow seriously lacking in comedic talent.
As for the show, I also felt good for one hour and twenty minutes. I really enjoyed Bill giving a big “Fuck You” to all the stupidity that goes on in this country. Every person who will not go against the president no matter what, everyone who thinks they are morally superior because they’re Christian and everyone that thinks marijuana should still be illegal got what they deserved in that show. It helps to have someone finally shout out “Your Stupid” to the people who are really acting stupid but whom you just didn’t want to offend. If their stupid behavior is messing up our good country, it has to be said and I’m glad to hear someone say it.
First, I consider Dennis Miller a right wing comedian, but that’s irrelevent. Larry the Cable Guy has the highest-charting comedy record since Steve Martin in 1978 and had the highest grossing tour of 2004. He may not be a “good” comedian, but he’s definitely got a wide audience. There’s also that whole Blue Collar Comedy show. Don’t know if that’s actually funny or not, but it’s popular, so there is right wing comedy, perhaps of dubious quality, but certainly a known presence. It’s a bit disingenuous to suggest otherwise, actually.
He’s not a “cure” for anything but what ails me. He’s just a breath of fresh air, an antidote, if you will, for the oppressive atmosphere in the country. I’m also not sure how you define the difference between commentators and journalists. Is Tucker Carlson a commentator or a journalist? What about Rush Limbaugh? Talking heads would be more like it, and I think Bill Maher is definitely a left wing talking head.
I never said anything about Fox News or stopping conservatives from doing anything. Inside my shriveled up little liberal heart, Bill Maher is the antidote to the America’s unintentionally comedic displays of stupidity under the Bush regime. He’s not going to save American from itself. He just makes me laugh, which saves me from myself for about 80 minutes.
You asked for right wing comedians. Now you want right wing *political * comedians. Get your story straight. Wait, don’t. Open another thread and argue about it there. Thanks.
That was a great show. I happened to be flipping channels at 10PM and got to his show right at the start. He was funny and made very strong points. If John Kerry only had balls enough to speak like that duruing the campaign (without all the profanity), we might be a little better off now.
I went in and watched “I’m Swiss” with my girlfriend because I heard her laughing. A lot of it was really funny, and I’m glad that Maher doesn’t stop to consider whom he might be offending. The show sagged a bit while he went off on nutrition and health (he’s a bit of a crackpot on some health matters) but it was mostly a well-deserved ridiculing of the bullshit we’re presented every day from the White House.
Wha? How are they “right wing”? Have any of the comedians on the BCCT ever said anything political on stage? There comedy is more along the lines of the old “what’s the deal with airline food” variety than anything newsy. Or do you think that rural=right wing?
Did you read the link I posted about Larry the Cable Guy? “100% Republican” is how he is characterized, and the rest of the article seems to bear that out. I’d say it’s safe to say that he’s right wing, and if you considering joking about giving gay men black eyes to be “political humor,” I’d say he’s a bit political too.
Do you have any doubt about Jeff Foxworthy’s politics? “If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone… you’re probably talking about Hillary Clinton.” He’s a self-labeled redneck, and I think it’s clear which side of the aisle he favors.
Yeah, I read the post link, and noted that the 100% republican, red state, and the “Hilary Clinton is Satan” stuff in the article all came from the author, Gavin Edwards. Larry the Cable Guy is popular in sections of America that tend to vote Rupublican, and he is makes offensive jokes, but the few times I’ve seen him, nothing “political” was ever said. The closest thing he did say that could be considered a political joke was a weight joke about Michael Moore. (Not that Larry is particularly slim.)
As to Jeff Foxworthy’s politics? I have no idea. I have never heard the Hilary Clinton line, and I’ve seen his routines frequently. (Much more frequently than LTCG, who I personally don’t find funny). In all the Blue Collar Acts, I would be hard pressed to find more than one or two vaguely political staments (I can’t think of any). That’s a very far cry from the type of act Bill Maher and Dennis Miller do. Heck, even Paula Poundstone is much more political (“George Bush is not my President”) but one line in a half-hour act doesn’t make her a political comedian when you have Bill Maher and Mark Russell’s doing Hours of nothing but politcal jokes.
Count me in as a Bill Maher fangirl. He’s beautiful. I didn’t catch all of the show, I fell asleep. But what I saw was great. His stand-ups always get me going, I can’t wait until the new season of Real Time starts.
Every time I hear that hill-jack Larry the Cable Guy say “Git R Done”, I get highly nauseated. He is disgusting and seemingly uneducated, or else he plays to the stupid audience quite well. He is not entertaining in the least, in fact, none of the redneck-on-parade show dudes are worth even listening to for one minute.
IMO of course.
I don’t know how this thread keeps turning into a discussion of right wing comedians (an oxymoron if I ever heard one).
I thought Maher was dead on about the dietary issue, too. America is a fat country getting fatter, and it’s killing us. No one wants to talk about that whole “milk it does a body good” bull, and how food is more dangerous than cigarettes for people’s health. Yeah, he’s a comedian, so he says it in a funny way, but this topic is another that is rarely discussed in an open forum and needs to be.
Oh come on. Because someone is Southern, they are not “right-wing comedians”? Many have indicated that they don’t even talk politics on their tour or show (both hilarious, but the tour is far, far better). Ron White, for one, I couldn’t see as a Republican. Probably not a Democrat either, but he’s closer to that side of the aisle from what I’ve heard from him. If you want to call them ‘redneck humor’ go right ahead (even though non-rednecks enjoy them as well), but right wing comedians? Let’s hear them rail on how they love the President before we turn that moniker on them.
He spent the first 45 minutes saying the same crap he’s been saying for years, frothing at the mouth about the evils of the government like a college freshman who just took their first humanities class. I can interview a passing San Diegan pedestrian and get that, and it’d probably be funnier.
I kinda agree. I like Bill (even more since I heard he is dating Supahead), but I think he phoned this one in. A bunch of the jokes were recycled from his HBO show, and didn’t really make any great points that I haven’t heard other comedians and talking heads make. It wasn’t a bad show, but I expected more.
