Lovely slap fight between Patton Oswalt and Salon.com

[astro]

Patton Oswalt makes Asian name joke, in response to racist KTVU news report

Salon.com is usually on the progressive side of things and their reaction to being called humorless, clueless prudes by Oswalt is the most beautiful dance of seething anger and confusion.

[deltasigma]

Is Patton Oswalt ever actually funny?

[astro]

@deltasigma

Is Patton Oswalt ever actually funny?

Patton Oswalt is a comedy God!

Death Bed

[miss_elizabeth]

He’s ok. He’s not half as funny as he thinks he is, and he comes across as an asshole with a chip on his shoulder because he never “made it”.

Example A: this whole thing with Salon.

He comes across as a dipshit in this story. The end of the article sums it up:

But really, this is the same tired line we’ve heard from Oswalt and other comedians before. They’re all about free speech for themselves to make whatever joke they want, and whenever anyone uses their own speech to counter them, they’re politically correct prudes who just can’t take a joke.

The joke wasn’t funny. It was also racist, but you know. It wasn’t funny either.

[astro]

More Patton Love -

Black Angus

[rowrrbazzle]

Oswalt rants and takes himself so seriously that the only way he’d look funny is to get a rise out of someone who takes themselves even more seriously. And Salon rose to the bait. And it really is funny.

[shantih]

Not only is Patton Oswalt one of the funniest, sharpest comedians around, he has a fierce intellect. I was greatly impressed by the quality of thought in this blog post, for example: http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=167

And if you need more proof of his humor and intelligence: Sky Cake.

[Miltonyz]

The horror of new York is a pretty damn good bit. He has quite a few funny bits actually. By comedian standards he has more then “made it”.

[stpauler]

I usually really enjoy Patton’s humor, but he was off for me in this whole scenario. The lame joke followed up by the defensive flailing fell flat for me.

This part brought out the nitpicker in me which made it even less funny (bolding his):

Salon: “So the reliably pedantic and thin-skinned Patton Oswalt wants to defend his poorly crafted joke rather than admit it fell short of being funny, and fired off a barrage of Twitter attacks against Salon all afternoon…”
Salon needs to look up what “barrage” and “afternoon” mean.

First, my “barrage” of “Twitter attacks”: 4 Re-Tweets of Salon followers, pointing out to Salon how they completely missed the point of my initial Tweet. Then three quick Tweets of my own, making fun of their clueless-ness, over-sensitivity and lack of context. Two Re-tweets from a former Salon writer, also pointing out how they missed the joke. Then, in rapid fire, three more Tweets making fun of their stupidity, including one that inspired my #Salonarticles hashtag, which was followed by four more Tweets of my own, a dozen re-Tweets of other people having fun with the #Salonarticles hashtag, and then a final RT of an article my Mediaite about how ridiculous and pathetic Salon was being. Sorry for all of the hard numbers here, but there’s a point to them, which we’ll get to in a second.

But this is Salon’s idea of a “barrage”, as well as an “afternoon”, which actually, if you check the time of the Tweets, translate into about 90 minutes, half an hour of which I spent inside the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (and, really, why haven’t you visited it yet?) reading Twitter’s evisceration of Salon, watching Mourning Cloaks feed on grey willow, and laughing my ass off.

Actually, I would consider 12 tweets re: the same thing a “barrage”.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

Yeah, he’s definitely made it, and his career trajectory is still on the upswing. He does an enormous amount of writing work, but has always maintianed that standup is the most important of his activities. I think he’s one of the Top 3 working comics right now.

[Anaamika]

It’s amazing to me (though I guess it shouldn’t be) that Asian jokes are still considered very acceptable in this country.

I am tickled by someone saying Salon doesn’t have a sense of humor, though. I’m glad they said something.

[Alessan]

I think that there’s no arguing the fact that over recent years, Salon has turned into a shrill, self-important and utterly humorless website. They weren’t always that way, and I’m glad someone called them on it.

@Labrador_Deceiver

Yeah, he’s definitely made it, and his career trajectory is still on the upswing. He does an enormous amount of writing work, but has always maintianed that standup is the most important of his activities. I think he’s one of the Top 3 working comics right now.

Personally, I think of him as one of my favorite character actors. Like Ron Perlman or Peter Storemare, he’s one of those guys I’m always happy to see pop up in movies and TV shows.

[Marley23]

Whether the joke was funny or not, it was pretty obvious he was making fun of the stupidity of KTVU rather than making up another comedy Asian names. That’s not racist.

@miss_elizabeth

He’s ok. He’s not half as funny as he thinks he is, and he comes across as an asshole with a chip on his shoulder because he never “made it”.

This is kind of funny because just this week I read this. I’m a fan, but objectively, he’s had plenty of success in TV and movies and standup.

[Max_the_Immortal]

I wonder if Salon will also comment on this bit from last night’s Colbert Report.

Edit: Also, as long as we’re sharing Patton Oswalt clips, give this one a listen.

[deltasigma]

@Max_the_Immortal

I wonder if Salon will also comment on this bit from last night’s Colbert Report.

I don’t usually find these sorts of things funny so when I laughed at the Korean part of the bit I was really puzzled - still am. The only thing I can think of is that it was the juxtaposition of the two highlighting the ethnic/cultural differences, but that doesn’t feel right.

[akennett]

Salon automatically loses because they cry about bullying.

[Marley23]

@deltasigma

I don’t usually find these sorts of things funny so when I laughed at the Korean part of the bit I was really puzzled - still am.

I laughed because I thought the same thing when I heard these stupid fake names. It’s probably item #50 on the list of reasons KTVU should have thought twice about the names, but it’s true.

[BigT]

If someone accuses you of being humorless, do you (a) come up with a clever joke putting them in their place, or (b) going on a rant proving how seriously you are taking everything?

Oswald’s joke wasn’t that funny, but Salon comes off as the loser to me. They proved him right.

[edwards_beard]

@miss_elizabeth

He’s ok. He’s not half as funny as he thinks he is, and he comes across as an asshole with a chip on his shoulder because he never “made it”.

Example A: this whole thing with Salon.

He comes across as a dipshit in this story. The end of the article sums it up:
The joke wasn’t funny. It was also racist, but you know. It wasn’t funny either.

I think the joke was funny. I don’t really see how it was racist. The joke was about the station, not the name. The key word in the tweet is “announced” When reading the joke I’m picturing the spokesman for the station up on a podium reading the name aloud doing essentially the same thing they did by reading the names on the air in the first place. If the word “announced” isn’t there then yeah, it’s just a joke about the name.

[The_Second_Stone]

Salon has become quite morally superior and scolding of late. Not very insightful. Oswalt’s joke wasn’t especially funny, particularly when compared to the jaw dropping stupidity of KTVU News, which I have to admit had me laughing as hard as I have all year. This is the sort of thing Bart Simpson would pull on Moe Sizlak or Kent Brockman. The names aren’t funny, the fact that KTVU fell for it is a major disconnect that induces uncontrollable laughter.