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There’s rumored good news and definite bad news in the world of funny today. And by “today” I mean “last week, but I’m just getting to it now since there’s no news today.” The good news first, from the Comic’s Comic:
I first reported on Monday that I was hearing whispers that Comedy Central might not be renewing The Jeff Dunham Show, the ventriloquist’s clunky sitcom that had Dunham and his puppets heckling “real people” in the “real world.” And now I’m hearing that, despite what Comedy Central told me, Dunham’s writing staff found out a week ago that the show wasn’t getting picked up after its season finale aired Dec. 10.
Wow, I can’t believe I live in a world where “Tosh.0″ gets a second season and the “The Jeff Dunham Show” gets canceled. Perhaps there’s hope after all! …or not:
It could very well turn out that Dunham himself would rather go about his rather lucrative business with the fans in person than spend time on a second TV season dealing with critics who don’t seem to like him very much at all… After all, he grossed $38 million just in ticket sales last year, plus millions more in merchandise sales.
Yeah, that’s why I don’t feel so bad putting Dunham in a triptych with Hitler and a Klansman. He’s far too wealthy to mind being called a racist. For the kind of money he’s making, I’d be willing to reinforce negative stereotypes among the dumbest segments of the populace, too. Hell, I’d probably do it for less. Especially if I got to expose those no-good micks for the lazy drunks they are.
One of my favorite new shows this year has been “Tosh.0,” so Comedy Central taking its sweet time to renew Daniel Tosh’s web-centric show has been frustrating. But there’s good news for people who laugh at videos of fat people falling down, because Tosh just got PAID.
The comedian has signed an overall deal with Comedy Central that includes the largest single-season episode order for a series in the network’s history. “Tosh.0″ is coming back for 25 episodes, with the premiere set for Jan. 13.
In addition, Tosh is partnering with Comedy Central on a one-hour stand-up special, DVD, CD and national stand-up tour. [THR]
Awesome. Obviously, I’m biased because I make fun of TV on the Internet and he makes fun of the Internet on TV, and I know that everyone has different tastes in humor, but “Tosh.0″ makes me laugh harder and more often than any other show on TV. Is it the vomiting? I think it’s the vomiting.
Alicia Keys was on “The Colbert Report” last night to promote her new album, and it was top-to-bottom excellent television. Not only did she capably match wits with Colbert during her interview (and look so, so, SO hot doing it), but she then played “Empire State of Mind,” and Colbert — who lamented the lack of shout-outs to the suburbs in the song — filled in on Jay-Z’s verse, changing the lyrics to fit his own New York story about moving from the Upper East Side to a gated community in Connecticut. It was really, truly AWESOME.
As good as Colbert is as a fake pundit, I always like him best when he takes on the broader role of entertainer-at-large. In fact, I’m going to go ahead and put my vote in for an Alicia Keys/Steven Colbert variety show. I’d watch the sh-t out of that. They could do it unscripted and it’d still be better than Jay Leno.
(Video of the interview and performance below.) Read the rest of this entry »
I’m very much in favor of America having a right-leaning news network, but I wish that Fox News could execute it without tripping over its dick. The latest example is this poll featured on “Fox and Friends” last Friday in which the 
numbers add up to 120%. And even though there were three people discussing the numbers in-depth, nobody managed to come clean about the bad math.
The snafu served as a launchpad for Jon Stewart’s cathartic take-down of Gretchen Carlson on last night’s “Daily Show.” The wide-eyed “Golly, I had to Google this big word” persona she has on “Fox and Friends” is just an act, as the former Miss America is actually a classically trained violinist who graduated with honors from Stanford and studied abroad at Oxford. I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it still hurts. There aren’t enough smart people out there as it is; we can’t really afford defections.
As you can see above, a new ad campaign is encouraging young people to be cool and fight conformity… by eating Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise. TO THE EXTREME! Stephen Colbert ably demolished this commercial last month (see video below), and Miracle Whip responded by buying up ad space in every one of Colbert’s commercial breaks last night. They also published this open letter to Colbert (emphasis added):
“With every commercial break, your viewers will be exposed to hardcore Miracle Whip attitude and revelry. You will see our legion of (as you call them) ‘mayo nay-sayers’ snarfing sandwiches topped with our one-of-a-kind flavor in a very cool and totally hip way. They will be in your face and massively dope. It goes without saying, they WILL NOT TONE IT DOWN. And you will begin to see the soft, bland white walls of the mayo empire begin to collapse under the weight of its own whipped-egg pretentiousness.”
Wait a second. That’s a little too intentionally Itchy & Scratchy & Poochy, even for advertising demons. I think Miracle Whip just went and made their whole ad campaign ironic. That’s almost kind of cool, if it weren’t for a freaking condiment. Please, just go back to pandering to fat people.
I don’t watch cable news because I don’t appreciate the absurdly high yelling-to-actual-violence ratio (if you talking heads are gonna shout each other down, at least finish the argument with a knife). But I’ve seen enough clips to get a feel for Glenn Beck, Fox News’s version of a “kind of but not really serious but actually kind of serious” Stephen Colbert. Whether his audience takes him at face value or not, Beck’s anti-intellectual fear-mongering hysteria adds nothing substantive to the nation’s political discourse.
All of that is a way of introducing Jon Stewart’s sudden, unannounced Glenn Beck impression during last night’s “Daily Show” that went on for eight and half minutes. As good as it is, I don’t think I laughed once. I found it more sad than funny. Then I read a list of cats with fraudulent diplomas and pretended the cats were wearing wigs when they received them, and then I felt a lot better.
