I see your point but I’m not sure he is selling out per se.
Ok, so maybe I stretched things a bit. I only saw the Fox show once or twice (I think it was only on that many times), but I don’t remember it having canned laughter except in the Limbaugh/Coulter opening bits, and that was part of the joke. Any show is going to have a rough start. Looking at its comedy objectively I felt the Fox show was not horrible by any means (unless you’re a flaming liberal). Jon Sewart wasn’t very good his first few weeks on The Daily Show.
I also confess that I don’t really watch Stewart much anymore. I can’t get over how that show totally changed under his reign. Kilborn’s show was cynical and sarcastic, and concentrated on comedy, not just political comedy. Stewart is too nice. Even when he mocks someone who really deserves it, Dem or GOP, he comes off as milquetoast.
And the only way Dennis Miller is ‘selling out’ is if you just feel everyone in show business has a duty to support the left. Nothing in his past conflicts with his current attitude. In fact, it confirms it. He is a voice of common sense and harsh reality in a sea of self-denying political-correctness…
Miller doesn’t have “a duty to support the left,” he just has a duty to be funny. And, as jrepka pointed out in an earlier post, if a lot of your humor is political, eliminating every joke and jab that targets the right side of the political spectrum is basically eliminating about 50% of your source material (and potentially rich comic material at that). Which reminds me, has Miller even made any jokes about the Religious Right since he became a GOP partisan hack? The old Miller used to needle them mercilessly but if he’s now decided to go soft them, that is as sure a sign as any that his sell out is complete and total.
He’s stated publically that he will not make jokes about George Bush or his policies, which destroys his credibility when speaking on political issues. And that holds true for anyone, right or left, comedian or serious pundit. This is not at all the same thing as advocating a particular political view through his comedy. He’s not an independent observer of the American political process, he’s a dedicated partisan for one side. That makes him a sell-out, entirely without regard to which side he has sold out to. A similar pronouncement from a liberal comic in regards to a prominent liberal politician would be similarly scorn-worthy.
Any political comedian who intentionally refuses to skewer the person or the party in power no longer has any arrows in his quiver. In other words, Dennis Miller has been firing blanks for quite some time now.
Seriously. Your analogy is baseless. Can you come up with one example of a Daily Show bit where they’ve done that? I’d say the Daily Show is more about showing clips of people making asses of themselves taken slightly out of context, touching on news stories that legitimate news networks seem to forego in favor of Paris Hilton clips, and interviews with prominent authors who have interesting things to say. And occasionally making incredibly stupid jokes or doing horrible impersonations, but even that is impressive if you consider that they’re doing it four times a week.
It’s not just that Fox News’ show is unashamedly partisan…excuse me, fair and balanced. The show is like a bad sketch on Mad TV that makes you feel embarassed for the people in it for how watered down and flavorless the jokes are. I honestly wish the half hour news hour was funny so I wouldn’t have to come down so hard on it, but it really is one of the worst television shows I’ve ever seen.
Their ACLU bashing is especially annoying. You’re damn right I support the constitution, stop acting like that’s a bad thing.
What I was going to add before the edit time period expired:
One thing that makes it so hard to identify with the humor in the Half Hour News Hour is that a lot of the underlying messages behind their humor have really obvious rebuttals that never get touched on. It makes you feel like you’re in a room full of idiots.
To continue comparing it to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (which is inevitable, even though the formats of the shows are different): The Daily Show excels at finding real news that is absurd in its own right and analyzing it. The Fox News show seems to be more about trying to make a joke by using a real news story as a pretext to make up a fake news report skit, and it feels a lot more disingenuous because their news correspondents are horrible actors. The Daily Show is fake news, but it feels honest. The Half Hour News Hour just feels fake and forced.
Miller refuses to make jokes about Bush because 100% of the jokes made about him are nothing more than ad hominem attacks from liberal comedians who’s audiences all ‘get’ that Bush is just stupid & evil. In other words, Dennis Miller isn’t going to engage in standard ignorant liberal Bush-bashing. For him to lower himself to that level would be a total sellout.
Miller also gets that during time of war with US troops overseas, cutting the pres a little slack isn’t such a bad idea. Especially, like I said, when ‘cutting him slack’ merely means not called him Hitler every other minute. Both of these are things the left couldn’t f*cking care less about.
Look, this is the same old same old. Conservative humor is just ‘mean’ while liberal humor is just common sense… :rolleyes:
That’s just silly and untrue. And even if it were true, Miller can fix that by-- joking on the President. If he did, then 100% of the jokes wouldn’t be liberals making ad hominen attacks, would it?
Instead, Miller is just an ass-kisser who sold his comedic soul to our current president.
This makes no sense. What Biggirl said. It’s like saying apple pie’s a dish that can be done well but I’m not going to make it because most people make it badly.
100%? Really? There is no legitimate jokes to be made about this administration (or maybe just Bush) what so ever? I’m sorry but do you think he’s some type of perfect god? Or is there just a 100% incompantacy rate among comedians who make jokes about presidents?
Another bizarre statement in times of crisis is when the man at top should be most analyzed. You don’t look at a CEO of a company when things are going great you care who’s in charge when things are going bad. Hell Linoln faced the most dire threat to the USA in its entire history did his critics give him a pass? Not for a second. Even many of his own generals openly mocked and attempted to spite him. However which comedian of the left does nothing but call him Hitler every other min? I admit I don’t watch as much comedy shows as I did since moving to England but before I left all I ever saw was jokes about his policies and occasional cheap shots at his looks/speaking style. I saw much harsher appraisals of the president on the SDMB then I ever did from ‘comedians’. Or are we just talking about the ‘left’ as a whole now instead of the comedians? In that case I think rebutting the scope of your perception on what the ‘left’ is really isn’t something that can be addressed in a Cafe thread.
Not really. It’s just the same old same old that humor that targets both sides and tries to be funny first and political second is ‘liberal’ while humor that focuses on being political first and targets one side to try to reaffirm already held assumptions and easy straw men is ‘fair and balanced’. Where were you during the Clinton years? I saw him being mocked every single night on TV from dozens of sources I don’t remember ‘liberal’ comedians giving him a pass during any of it. Strangely I considered myself a Conservative with Liberal leanings during Clinton and came from a hyper conservative area so I certainly would have heard about all this bias the right is so obsessed with. Yet it’s only become a proper bogey-man since Bush took over.
I still don’t know what show you’re referring to.
Seriously, just stick with “I don’t like the show and don’t watch it”.
You’re coming across like the guy who says his least favorite cast member on Friends was the organ grinder.
Wasn’t that Lisa Kudrow? 
Miller’s problem is an identity crisis: he can’t decide if he wants to be a pundit/analyst or a comedian.
And the fact he’s not funny.
He used to be, I’ll give him that. Has nothing to do with his politics either: his rants used to be funny, but they became so formulaic that computer programs were created as parodies that sounded as good as if not better (and I never got the “obscure reference” descriptions of him- absurdist or pop-cultural perhaps, but they weren’t that obscure- referencing Josh Billings or the takeover of Muenster by polygamous Anabaptist fanatics would be obscure). He also always comes off as being totally rehearsed and notice that if he’s ever interrupted in mid-course he has to reverse course because it’s clear he’s doing a routine and not extemporaneous. (Compare this to Robin Williams when he was Miller’s age- his spontaneity/improv was just as prefab and rehearsed but it didn’t seem it, which is the mark of a master.)
If you think that Stewart and Colbert are rehearsed and prefab, just ask Tucker Carlson or anybody at the WH Correspondent’s Dinner*. They can both be quite unpredictable. 
Plus, Colbert and Stewart are both brilliant and well informed men whether you agree with their politics or not: both have held their own with heavyweights WHILE STAYING ON TOPIC far better than almost any actual CNN or FOX pundit, and their shows are not only the best places to see authors of serious and interesting books interviewed, they’re sometimes the ONLY places outside of perhaps 3 a.m. BookTalk programs.
That said, FOX can be hysterical. O’Reilly discussing how he won his argument with Dawkins over the existence of God or earlier this week Michelle Malkin calling Geraldo Rivera a pandering ignorant narcissist who promotes only himself right to his mustachioed smirking face (no YouTube yet but I’m sure there will be) were both pretty damned funny.
*Ironically, had Colbert been roasting William Shatner or I’d have thought he was an asshole; I cringed when Sarah Silverman attacked Paris Hilton at MTV Movie Awards and thought Michael Moore should have been horsewhipped for his attack on Charlton Heston when he was a guest in the old man’s house, but when Hilton and Heston and other celebrities indulge their egomania and eccentric irrational views people don’t die by the thousands. When Colbert eviscerated Bush I just found myself thinking Godawmighty but I wish I had his balls. And while trivial, few things are more illustrative of Bush’s entire administration than the substitution of Rich “Damn that’s a good Edmund Gwenn Imitation!” Little and the Dancing Goebbels bit the next year.
The best thing ever on FoxNews was Bill versus Geraldo.
Damn- that was good. Thanks for the link.
O’Reilly v. Rivera in a 2 walk in/1 walks out iron cage match: who the hell do you root for or against? No matter as it’s win/win.
But strangely— I think I’d actually have to cheer for O’Reilly. O’Reilly’s just pandering and reinforces prejudices people already have but I don’t think he’s actually caused real damage. Geraldo’s Satanic Panic special alone (which he’s never apologized for even though many of his interview subjects alleging Satanic conspiracies and ritual molestation were later shown to be frauds or just deluded or barking-mad) caused more damage in an evening than O’Reilly’s been responsible for in his entire career (plus, I feel I owe it to Kurt Vonnegut, who having been his father-in-law especially hated him).
:eek:
:eek: :eek:
Know where I can find out more about this?
-FrL-
I believe that is the ONLY TIME EVER that I sided with Geraldo and considered him to be the voice of reason. Bizarro world indeed.
Kurt mentions it in one of his books, I think that it was a collection of his speeches, but I don’t recall. I don’t remember him being particularly scathing, more sad, than anything else, that his daughter married the twit.
A better show to contrast The Half Hour News Hour would be Lil Bush. Both are supposed funny commentary on politics but are really unfunny partisan crap.