Absolutely.
You’re right. 114% would have been funny.
And 97% would also have been funny.
93%, interestingly, would not be funny. Neither would 106%.
And 99.9%, as we have seen, was definitely not funny.
On the other hand, 99 point 9 9 9 9 three would, if delivered properly, be funny.
Humor, it is a difficult concept.
Wow, that construction almost deserves mention in tiny rants!
He’s right that Kilborn was much more like an anchor than Stewart has ever been. But Kilborn wasn’t intelligent, insightful or especially funny, so you don’t find a lot of people who miss him.
I’ll be lazy and c&p a comment about that from an earlier thread.
I watched the clip. It’s appalling. I really thought there might be something in it - a guilty pleasure at mocking political positions I tend to agree with. Nothing. And the OTT laughter makes it worse somehow.
That said, the Daily Show is getting a bit long in the tooth these days as well.
C’mon American TV, we abandoned political satire the moment Blair got into power. I’m relying on you to keep the impetus up!
Bremner, Bird and Fortune and The Thick of It disagree with you.
I admit I never saw The Thick of It, and I’ve heard from people whose opinion I respect (such as you) that it’s brilliant; however, though I appreciate the intelligence behind Bremner, Bird and Fortune, and it has fantastic points to make, IMO it’s just not funny and/or entertaining in the way that The Daily Show is/was.
Sorry to revisit this, but I just came upon a cite. From here:
That’s from the series’ creator. So, are we agreed that Daily Show comparisons are germane?
Youtube doesn’t have any other links to commercials or clips (there was one a couple days ago that didn’t specifically say it was for the show, it had the Fox News logo with the quote “News without the liberal slant”… in the middle of regular Fox News programming).
What youtube does have right now are a couple of meh funny clips from The O’Reily Factor and other FoxNews shows with HHNH intro clips and laugh tracks.
Funny/entertaining is a subjective thing. It is still satire though 
The Think of It is superb. Even with the nonce thing hanging over the lead actor. You should get the DVD.
I’m a big fan of TDS and Colbert BTW. Watch them all the time. Colbert is funnier IMO. It’s more Britishy in it’s satire that TDS IMO. I agree that there is less of it nowadays in the UK but it’s still there. Marcus Bridestock(sp?) does some very good stuff on radio 4 and on his show on BBC4(TV).
The thing that I find alien about this whole thing is that in Ireland(Scrap Saturday) and the UK when show like this come about they may be made by people with bias but they attack all sides if there is comedy there and the majority of people just enjoy it for what it is. In the US though it seems that bias is a very hard thing to get away from. TDS/Colbert is very funny and when there is comedy in attacking the left it does so.
This bag of shite we’re talking about is just that. Not because it is attacking the left but because so far they haven’t shown anything that is funny IMO.
When they do funny I’ll be there. They can be pissing on the grave of MLK, JFK, Ghandi and Christ himself. I couldn’t give a fuck. Just be funny while doing it. So far the couple of examples I’ve seen on youtube tell me they are unfunny.
Wow, this is really bad.
That has to be a laugh track. People can’t really be laughing at the end of every sentence spoken on the stage.
Anyone else see it? I caught the last 15 minutes, maybe the first half was better? What I saw was worse then I would’ve thought, surely a channel with the resources of Fox News could hire some writers to atleast create a few laughs.
But instead it basically followed the formula of Mallard Filmore: make a statement about what some liberal group or constituancy does/thinks (actors, global warming advocates, etc), and then pretend some sort of joke has been made, in this case by using a short spurt of laughter after every single sentence.
I really think the laughter was canned or that the audience was trained to laugh when a light went on or something. The laughter not only seemed overly frequent, but it was short enough to never get in the way of the hosts lines. Also it seemed weird to have a presumably Republican audience cheer the fake ACLU guy, I’d think they boo/hiss. I rather suspect the producers either didn’t happen to have any canned boo/his noises on hand, or they only had a “CHEER!!” sign to queue the audience with.
I’ll try it again in a few weeks. Maybe they’ll get the bugs worked out, but I can’t imagine the show as is will last more then a few weeks, nevermind a whole season.
PJ? Is that you?
Seriously though, you’re laying it on a little thick.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked from the YouTube clip, but it doesn’t hold a candle to even the worst Daily Show episode. It felt like a lame, half hour long version of SNL’s Weekend Update. Here’s hoping it either gets better or gets canceled. It will be interesting to see what kind of ratings it gets, especially after the first episode.
Impressions:
“Cindy Sheehan’s shooting spree” made me chuckle a bit.
That’s about it.
That wasn’t that bad. I used to listen to Rush back in the 90’s, and thought his some of his bits were pretty funny, the show would probably be better if he was a regular, doubt that that will be the case though.
And the cigar thing? Was that an intentional Clinton joke? It was pretty deadpan if it was, but that was the first intepetation that popped into my head.
This show isn’t aimed at a Daily Show audience. It’s aimed at people who don’t *get *the Daily Show. There are plenty of people out there with a blind spot for irony (the ones I notice seem to be on the right, but I’m sure there are many on the left as well).
THHNH is aimed at people who think that 99.9% is funny, Jim Belushi is funny, singing fish wall hangings are funny, “I don’t care who y’are, that’s funny” is funny. This show is inane and terrible, if the segment we’ve seen is a fair representation. It’s low, basic setup/punchline/pause/repeat comedy. Like you’d find in an office comedy skit, or a school play. It will probably do fine, for cable, and with time it will be mentioned invariably in the same breath as the Daily Show:
“Are shows like the Daily Show and The Half-Hour News Hour doing more harm than good?”
“The scandal proved to be a field day for satirical news programs, like the Daily Show and the Half-Hour News Hour…”
It drags down the genre and diminishes the Daily Show in the process, which may be the point.
Is it just me or did the children’s book section go on for about 2 minutes longer than it should’ve? I mean, one, two books top would’ve made the point. I think any kid in a high school improv club could’ve avoided that bit…
All in all I found one joke pretty damn funny… The Nigerian aid scam bit.