Contrary to numerous gloomy internet reports prior to its airing, tonight’s premiere episode of the new Fox News TV comedy program, The 1/2 Hour News Hour, co-created and produced by 24 mastermind Joel Surnow, was very funny indeed. The opening sequence, in which Rush Limbaugh speaks as the newly elected President of the United States and Ann Coulter is vice president, was goofy and charmingly funny. Sample joke: Rush asks Ann if she’ll join him for a cigar. Ann says, "Isn’t the White House a smoke-free zone?" Rush replies, gleefully, "Not any more!" It’s a cheerfully silly moment, but it also makes a good point about the annoying busybody mentality so prevalent in America today that it permeates even the White House. The rest of the program consists of a fictional news program hosted by two typically earnest anchors, complete with fictional commercials. It’s very funny. Tonight’s top story: Dispelling reports that she would staff her White House with longtime cronies and political appointees, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton vowed that if she becomes president she will surround herself with a diverse, multiethnic, multigenerational group . . . of angry lesbians. A comedy bit consisting of an advertisement for BO, a
Posts Tagged ‘ comedy ’
“The Half-Hour News Hour” to Premiere This Sunday
Pascal Fervor kindly forwarded us the following email message regarding the new comedy program The Half Hour News Hour, co-created and -produced by Joel Surnow (24, The Equalizer, Le Femme Nikita): Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:09:02 -0800Subject: .FOX News Channel will broadcast the first episode of The HalfHour News HourFrom: "Jeffers M. Dodge"To: friends THE LOS ANGELES REPUBLICANS COALITION Good Evening, This Sunday, February 18th, 7:00 pm
The Inestimable Larry Miller
Larry Miller is one of the funniest comedians around. Rather like a younger Bob Newhart but with a bit more of an edge, the balding, pudgy Miller has made a name for himself as a comic character actor in numerous movies and tv shows, but where he made his name was as a hilariously funny standup comedian who applied traditional morality and sound common sense to our crazy Omniculture society, a place that is simultaneously puritanical about progressive political shibboleths (such as tobacco, fatty foods, and economic freedom) and aggressively nonjudgmental about self-destructive personal behaviors such as sexual weirdness, drug abuse, willful ignorance, and atrocious manners. Miller caught the inconsistencies and incongruities of that condition admirably, as in his memorable monologue about the five levels of alcohol drinking while on a night out, available here. Miller has also become an accomplished writer of comic essays, primarily for The Weekly Standard‘s webpage, and he has a new book out, called Spoiled Rotten America, which sounds like great fun and a nice Christmas gift for your favorite blogger. Comedy writer Warren Bell reviews it here. Here’s an excerpt from the review: Larry Miller is profound. He possesses an ability to look deep
Guest Article: The New Avant-garde: Clean Comedy
Our friend Mike D’Virgilio has posted an interesting article on a cultural trend toward "cleaner" products and has kindly granted us permission to present it to you here. Mike’s article notes something important about the Omniculture: everything happens, and while there is much on what traditionalists would call the extremely bad end of the spectrum, there is also much more than in recent decades on the more wholesome end of things as well. Here’s Mike’s article: I guess if you live long enough you pretty much see everything, but I never thought I’d see an article I read on the front page of Friday’s Weekend Journal. (I can’t link to it, because it requires a subscription–I get the dead tree version–but I can steal a few quotes.) The article’s title drew me in: “Comedy Comes Clean: In a backlash against racy and gross-out material, some comics are turning to still-biting but less salacious jokes.” Who would have ever imagined that post-Lenny Bruce, the cutting edge of comedy would be comics who refuse to utter vulgarities or refer to bodily functions? Since I’m not a connoisseur of comedy I had no idea such a thing even existed. Sure I’ve heard about
Inspector Mom—Mysteriously Good
Confession time: I make a habit of not watching the Lifetime TV network, which appears to be aimed at left-of-center suburban soccer moms. However, the title of new Lifetime series, Inspector Mom, grabbed my attention, so I took a look at the pilot. And what do you know? It was kind of fun. Danica McKellar (The Wonder Years) plays Maddie Monroe, a—guess what?—soccer mom who’s trying to juggle childraising and a part-time career as a newspaper columnist, known as Inspector Mom. She is in fact a former topnotch investigative journalist who quit her job and went down to part time work in order to raise her children. And guess what? She’s perfectly happy with her choice. That’s definitely a point in the show’s favor. Of course, she happens to be a born supersleuth who can’t help getting involved in murder investigations in suburban America—such as the killing of a nasty, womanizing soccer coach (in the pilot episode), a judge in a baking competition, and a little old lady down the road. The show covers some of the same ground as the BBC TV series Murder in Suburbia, but with a good deal less archness and sense of superiority. That’s
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