Bingo.
If a guy at the bar next to you told it as a joke, it would be a polite heh-heh at best; most of wore out “Wun Hung Lo” humor back in middle school, and it is racist at worst, stereotyped at best.
But in context - yes the names are stupid and racist, but the CONTEXT is what makes it simply priceless. It’s like a guy telling a really tired, old black joke… the joke isn’t funny, but his not noticing Mike Tyson standing behind him as he tells it is 10:10 hilarious.
Only two times.
Oswalt’s joke is actually more racist than the ones used by the news station. Because (a) he knew and created the name and (b) he brought out the old Asians-can’t-pronounce-the-letter-R trope.
Neither are, in my estimation, a serious form of racism or even all that offensive, but I think it’s wrong to say that there is a complete lack of a disrespectful racial insinuation to either the joke or original prank.
Oswalt’s clearly a successful comedian, but I know I lost some degree of respect for him in using this joke and not being at least circumspect about it.
It’s not racist at all. The joke is “Those idiots at KTVU would think this is a real name, too.” There is no racist sentiment there. The comment is that the station failed so badly they would mistake another joke-book Asian name for a real one even after the first report blew up in their faces.
How do you gather that Oswalt’s intention was that KTVU would think that was a real name, too? I’m not seeing how you are coming to that conclusion. So the premise is that KTVU is so stupid that it would not know the name of its own PR spokesperson?
Then maybe you’re right. Maybe Oswalt was not racist. He just made an incredibly stupid joke.
He wasn’t trying to fool KTVU. He was making a joke at their expense, meaning they are so dumb they would have fallen for someone else pranking them with that “We So Solly” name. And I would say “Me So Solly” survives today as an example of racist jokes about Asians, not a fake Asian name people really think is funny. The Simpsons used it that was 15 years ago.
I am right. Read the tweet where he made fun of them for reporting these names (without saying ‘man, these names are great puns’).