I saw the Donahue show when he went into the church where Al Sharpton, C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox were held up during the Tawana Brawley bruhaha. It was sickening at its best. Their defense was “whenever a black woman says a white man raped her, she is probably telling the truth.” When asked about the lack of medical evidence, they stated:
There was medical evidence (not so).
Tawana had been given a bath before the tests to wash away the evidence (not so).
Well, you don’t know the color of the people who did the tests.
It was weird and sickening–the idea that anyone would believe Tawana was raped despite the overwhelming evidence that she wasn’t because “she said so.”
IOr how 'bout Bush polishing his glasses on the sweater Dave’s assistant was wearing? While she was wearing it, as she was talking to Dave at his desk during commercial? God bless The Late Show for broadcasting that later, and several times over. That was too funny.
Anyone else remember Vanilla Ice wigging out and destroying half the set on an MTV (or was it VH1?) special about one-hit wonders? He was supposed to only destroy his copy of “Ice Ice Baby,” and took it WAY too far. The hosts were clearly uncomfortable.
Another one from Letterman. I don’t know why he booked this guy in the first place. I don’t remember his name but he was the “artist” who was married to the Italian pornstar who was in their Paliment. This pretentious snot was going on and on about how great his artwork was. Dave eventually got him to admit that he actually didn’t do any of the work, he was supposedly the idea man. Dave used the rest of the interview to berate and belittle him. A great moment but uncomfortable to watch.
On radio when Ron & Fez were still on the air in New York they had an interview with Rutger Hauer. He obviously had no idea that it was a comedy show. For the first 15-20 minutes they gradually made the interview more and more surreal with many of their usual characters calling in and asking bizarre questions. The there was a fake emergency and both hosts left the studio. Rutger became the host of the show for about 15 minutes of very ackward radio. I thought it was brilliant.
God I loved that Madonna/Courtney/Kurt interview. THAT was quality television. My respect for Madonna skyrocketed watching her pull off a perfect Ice Queen in contrast to Courtney’s messy Basket Case.
As for awkward, Matthew Broderick appeared recently on The Daily Show and it was so boring and uncomfortable it almost wasn’t even funny. Matthew seemed exhausted and somewhat stoned and had absolutely nothing of interest to say. I thought John Stewart was just going to lay his head on his desk and take a nap.
Also, one of the best parts of Courtney Love v. Madonna was when Kurt Loder was trying to get Courtney to come up to the interview area, Madonna adds her own color commentary with “Courtney Love is in desperate need of attention.” I’m not a huge Madonna fan, but she does know how to deliver some good sound bites. And then when Courtney falls off the stool ass over teakettle, exposing her none-too-attractively bruised and pale legs? That was hilarious.
I can’t possibly be the only person who saw Matthew McConaghey make an incredible ass of himself on the Daily Show a couple years ago. His interview was so bizarre that they actually kept going and ran it into the next segment, making it twice as long as a normal interview. He was talking about his goats (he owns a ranch, apparently) and explaining their sexual habits. All while clearly on some substance. Jon Stewart seemed both horrified and extremely amused at the same time. It was an absolute trainwreck. Still, awfully funny.
There was a Letterman episode where he had the world’s fastest typist. So he pitted her against the fastest typist on his staff. In the first round, she forgot to put paper in the typewriter. So they tried again. When they finished her typing was complete gibberish because one hand was shifted to the left or right and she was typing the wrong keys. Gawd, it was hilarious!
No, seriously, I think that whole show qualifies as uncomfortable. The idea was great, but the format was horrible. They play these rediculous videos and they bring in four comedians to comment on the videos. Sounds great, right? But they only play a small clip of each video, and they let all the comedians say whatever they want in the background. It was obnoxious, like being at the movies with a bunch of talkers. (Why didn’t they assign each person a few videos to comment on and take turns? The rest could just laugh in the background.) I gave up on it after about 10 minutes. The Vanilla Ice trashing (which I saw later) could only improve things, and I was sorry I missed it.
AveDementia, I show that show too, and I couldn’t agree more. If I remember correctly, John Stewart and Jeneane Garofolo were two of the comedians and I remember thinking at the time that they were two of the lamest excuses for comedians I’d ever seen. They were at least somewhat known at the time and I chalked up whatever success they had achieved as being the result of good writing more than an innate ability to be funny. This impression was further reinforced when Stewart hosted an awards show (Oscars or Emmys, I forget which) and was so bad that even he had to admit while standing at the podium that he sucked.
And while John Stewart seems to have acheived a fair amount of success with his show since then and lots of people love him, I still haven’t seen anything to change my mind about either him or Garofolo.
I saw an Arsenio Hall Show with George Carlin. When Carlin went on to do his schtick, what came out instead was a long viscious diatribe against golf. The room was completely silent all the way through and after, IIRC. Anybody else see that?
Chevy Chase on Bill Mahr’s old show. Got really pissy, acted like a total ass, and almost walked off the stage. I have no respect for him since I witnessed that.
And, slightly off track, has anybody else seen that Funniest Home Videos clip of the fat kid on the rollercoaster (or Ferris Wheel)?He’s about to actually fall out of the car and is screaming in absolute horror. His adult companion is laughing at him the whole time. And then the FHV audience is laughing their heads off, too. Excrutiating to watch.
I would have rather funneled molten lead into my but than sit through Arsenio, but that was part of Carlin’s routine circa 1991, when he was really coming into his grumpy old man phase.
If he’d have kept the volume down a bit, and remembered to append it with “what’s up with that?” more people would have recognized it as observational humour.
I can still hear the way he shrieked “arrogant!”, though.
Anyway, I didn’t find it uncomfortable, but then again I’m a dirty socialist who’d replace every links on the continent with subsidized housing in a heartbeat, given half a chance.
My memory: About ten years ago, Jay Leno had Linda Ronstadt and either Howard Stern or Robin Quivers as guests one night. Ronstadt performed a song, walked over to sit next to Jay, then said she was offended as a Mexican-American woman to be sitting alongside someone who had recently devoted a large portion of Stern’s show to cracking jokes about the death of Selena. Quivers (I’m almost certain it was her) started invoking the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and accusing Ronstadt of accepting second-hand accounts of the Stern show as gospel. Leno, realizing he was in a no-win situation, mumbled something about how he could respect the two women for having such divergent opinions.
