Fox News Channel might air two episodes of a “Daily Show”-like program with a decidedly nonliberal bent on Saturday nights in late January, with the possibility that it could become a weekly show for the channel.I think is is going to fail. Why? Forgive me for making a sweeping generalization: conservatives aren't funny. Certainly there are exceptions. Jackie Mason, for one. Certain episodes of South Park. On the whole, however, when one wants to laugh the scale tilts heavily to the left. Even coming up with five right-wing comedians is a challenge. I can't get far without having to add Dennis Miller, and he's about as funny as Mikhail Glinka giving math lessons to Friedrich Nietzsche aboard the Andrea Doria.
The half-hour show is executive produced by “24’s” Joel Surnow and Manny Cota and creator Ned Rice, who previously wrote for “Politically Incorrect” and “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” through This Just In Prods. It would take aim at what Surnow calls “the sacred cows of the left” that don’t get made as much fun of by other comedy shows. “It’s a satirical news format that would play more to the Fox News audience than the Michael Moore channel,” Surnow said. “It would tip more right as ‘The Daily Show’ tips left.”
Perhaps I should say: conservative attempts at humor are not usually successful, though there are plenty of conservatives who have excellent senses of humor.
Consider: recent forays into field of humor have not been terribly successful. The most prominent right-wing comic strip, Mallard Fillmore a.k.a. Gipper the Talking Points Duck, drawn by a man so thin-skinned and contemptuous of his readers' intelligence that he thought they would be fooled by a parody of his strip in America: the Book. Naturally, he struck back by implying that Jon Stewart has a thing for underage drunk boys. For me, it was easy to tell the real Mallard from the fake because Stewart's version was funny.
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe this new show will be witty and insightful and make everyone laugh at their own foibles. But, the odds are against them.
2 comments:
funny conservative is an oxymoron.
I spend hours each week on conservative blogs and have yet to find a comment that is outright funny. Lots of sneering and be-littling but no wit.
I maintain that I am mildly hilarious.
You should see me try to polka.
That said, I think your point is valid Loyal. The humorous amongst the conservative crowd do tend to be libertarian minded, like the South Park fellows, though I think that some conservatives find Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to be amusing.
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