I guess this is CNN’s attempt to lure some of the same audience that watches The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. A comedy show about current news stories, with a focus on politics. Goofy comedy bits and jokes mixed with more genuine interviews. Not necessarily a bad idea for an all-news channel, though they could run the risk of coming off as more partisan than they wish to appear. Still, I saw some survey recently (sorry, no cite) where a significant number of people reported that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were their primary source of news. I think this was especially evident in the college age and 20something demographics. So I understand CNN wanting to maybe try out a comedy-news show of their own.
But D.L. Hughley? Really? I’ve seen him more than once on TV doing standup and on shows like Conan O’Brien and he never even got a chuckle out of me. I’ve watched “D.L. Hughley Breaks The News” twice now, to give it a fair chance. And I have to conclude…
I just thought it was ridiculous how CNN presented the lead up to D.L. Hughley. I was like, is he going to announce Obama chosen him as goodwill ambassador or something?
I have watched two shows so far.
It is an odd mix…skits of a sort with jokes, followed by real interviews.
Not really knowing D.L. Hughley that well - actually, hardly at all - before seeing the show, I kind like him. He seems “real” in his interviews and has a funky sense of humor in the “skits” or whatever you want to call them.
I think his show will get very interesting if Obama wins the election.
Why?
Because he is a big Obama fan, but at the same time, he doesn’t seem like he afraid of making fun of Obama…and it will be interesting to see what he does with the material.
At any rate…so far so good, and a nice follow up to Larry King. As much as I like CNN, a little humor won’t hurt.
At least D.L. is occasionally funny. It could be worse, they could have named it “Chocolate News”, and gotten the never funny David Allen Grier to host, and put it on Comedy Central. Oh, wait…
But that’s what the new show is missing–a little humor. I mean, I didn’t find anything worth laughing about. They even drew the lovely Erica Hill into this POS for a bit about some people (actors) providing “real-time” feedback on the show. The whole skit was about how bad the show was. It was true, but it wasn’t funny. At all.
As for Larry King–his show is watchable when he’s got a good guest, but otherwise it’s pretty bad, too. King just sits there and blares out pre-written questions. And they rerun each King show about 20 times.
A two hour block of King and now Hughley is two hours I am not very likely to watch CNN.