I was getting pretty fed-up during the late Calif. recall with all the Gary Coleman coverage, all of which seemed to consist of short jokes. I expected it of Comedy Central (though, really, one expects The Daily Show to eschew the obvious jokes), but even The NY Times had an extensive interview with him: after Coleman complained about all the short jokes, the reporter went on to talk about his clothes from the childrens’ shop and how his cute little feet didn’t reach the floor from his chair. Now there’s Knee-High P.I., with the admittedly funny tagline, “Sometimes the best dick is a small one.”
I’m not a dwarf or a midget, and I don’t even know any dwarves or midgets, but jeez, I feel sorry for them! I mean, it’s not something you can hide. I’m not going to claim they’re the “last group it’s permissable to laugh at,” because it’s still open season on fat people and the transgendered, too.
Jesus–can you imagine being a fat, transgendered midget? I’d kill myself as soon as I was old enough to get the pills.
Eve, I’m totally with you on the short jokes thing, but I’d like to make one small correction: Gary Coleman is neither a dwarf nor a midget; his growth was stunted because of his kidney problems.
And get the childproof safety cap off, little childlike hands and all, y’know.
But since rednecks/white trash/ lower class Southerns are in the running for “last group socially acceptable to laugh at”. Wouldn’t it be worse to be a fat, transgendered midget who lives in a trailer park?
I better stop, too many jokes that I’m ashamed of for thinking up and memories of Dave Attell comedy routines are coming to mind.
Getting back to that point—what choice did he have? Even if he were a better actor than he is, would he have been offered the kind of roles going to Blair Underwood or Morgan Freeman? Midgets and dwarves (and, OK, just “really short people”) only exist on film & TV as human punchlines.
What choice? If he weren’t short, he wouldn’t even have been an actor. He certainly didn’t get the different strokes gig on his acting talent. I’m sure if he had Morgan Freeman talent, or Tom Cruise looks he would have found more work in the last 20 years.
Geez Eve, every time I read one of your posts lately I have paroxsymal laughiing fits that render me useless for normal conversation for bloody hours.
This one is no exception. My body is tired, exhausted by the exertion involved in dealing with your post. I can’t handle it anymore. My kids think I have gone completely troppo and are threatening to call in the Psychiatric Assessment Team.
Can a sympathetic mod please ban Eve until I have recovered my strength to cope with another of her posts? She is a blight upon the serious and depressive character of these boards. I say we ban her.
I agree, Eve. The only really funny dwarf scene I recall from a movie was in Living in Oblivion. I won’t spoil the scene for other people, but it had me breathless with laughter.
The Daily Show did a little bit of self-mocking humor with the Coleman jokes, which was kind of funny and kind of painful, in which they told a series of ridiculous jokes about Coleman’s size (referring to his living in a Barbie Dream House etc.) as a way of mocking the media’s coverage of his campaign. I’m not sure how much Coleman would’ve appreciated it.
He’s a weird guy, and I kind of pity him for his weirdness, but people need to get over his size.
I gotta admit I laughed when the Comedy Central reporter standing outside of Coleman’s election headquaters was actually standing in front of a dollhouse.
I laughed too when Gary read Letterman’s Top Ten List of Things I’ll Do Once I’m Elected and number 2 was “I would form a task force to find out exactly what Willis was talking about”
I also laughed when Chris Farley did his Flashdance routine.
There is no hope for me, is there?
Knee-High PI looks positively juvenile, so maybe there is hope.
