Tag Archives: comedians

When court jesters stop laughing at despots they expect you to stop too

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They’re funny, they’re clever, and their comedy can be dead serious, but it turns out when political comedians actually are dead serious they expect their audience to come to heel. Bernie Sanders was just a laugh, look at yourself, you fell for it. Court jesters pile on the ridicule of whoever’s the ruler, but when the diversion is over, the joke’s on you, now shut up. Said Sarah Silverman to heartbroken Bernie delegates: “Don’t be ridiculous.” Adds Seth Meyers: “We don’t have time for this.”

Is Palin writing for SNL or vice versa? Who are this election’s screenwriters?

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Remember when Sarah Palin gave her infamous 2008 Katie Couric interview? Palin’s disordered responses were so Miss Teen Carolina that Saturday Night Live writers didn’t have to wring out a parody. Instead Tina Fey brought down the house by repeating Palin’s folksy schtick verbatim. Essentially SNL added a laugh track. Every week the entire country tuned in to SNL in anticipation of Fey’s mimicry act. Eight years later Palin has come out of the wood paneling to endorse fellow freak Donald Trump. Immediately everyone is salivating for the SNL instant replay. Hmm.

It seems Sarah Palin has reprised her role as fount of Ugly Americanisms and I have to wonder. Maybe SNL’s humorists hadn’t caught a break after all. Maybe they had been hard at work in preproduction. Working on Sarah Palin as season pilot. Gag writers didn’t have to write a Palin parody because they drafted the original jokes.

We like to think of our comedians as authors of their own brilliant wit, yet we know their TV talk shows employ gaggles of writers. It’s true from Comedy Central to the Tonight Show. Why do we give a village idiot like Sarah Palin credit for her seamlessly funny imbecility?

Or Donald Trump for that matter? Trump has yet to miss a single sour note or plumb an inoffensive punchline with his every gutterance.

If we recognize the American two party system and its lesser of bogeymen false choice as an unchanging melodrama, we must consider the show has its screenwriters. Palin and Trump and Hillary and Bernie are reciting lines already tested on focus groups, seasoned to our taste, to manufacture consent for political continuity.

And how about casting directors? Somebody is deciding who gets the screentime. Why is anyone asking Sarah Palin’s opinion about Trump or anything for that matter. What qualifies Palin to opine at all? She’s been neither public figure, candidate, governor, nor mayor of Alaska’s meth capitol, since she came and went two elections cycles ago.

Political kingmaking is frequently attenuated by media gatekeepers but clearly the casting decisions they make are based on viewership ratings.

If there’s a show with cast and crew, there’s a showrunner. Elsewhere in TV-land the spotlights is regularly turned on them. I’m not talking about campaign managers or party heads, they are the stage managers or Don Pardos at best. Showrunners are the real auteurs, if that word doesn’t lend excessive dignity to their oeuvre, which is crap.

Team Obama 2008 won advertizing’s most prestegious award for that brand’s successful campaign. The Cleo is an industry award, generally outside the public’s viewshed. Of course the awards should have been Emmys.

If you want to see the real wits behind the scenes, it’s time to unmask the twits. Exile them to Reality TV where they belong. Let us accept or reject the showrunners if you’re going to pretend this is a democracy.

Birds of a feather laugh at doggy sex jokes together

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I saw this thread under a video posted to Facebook making light of a joke made on NMT by Ed Billings, at Tony’s expense.
Joel Aigner, Mike Jay, Jim Cross, Michael Clifton, Ed Billings, Nancy Wolffe
LOVE IT. There are the names in one webshot, IN LEAGUE, laughing as one of them offers to contract for a dog-napping. Freedom of Speech doesn’t protect making threats and menacing, you dopes. Further along Clifton suggests that the dog sex jokes are surrogates for the politically incorrect laughs they’d rather be having, at thinking about Tony and me being GAY.
 
Do you suppose any of these comedians think we could give a fig about what they’re saying? They’re irrelevant do-nothings. And while my advice to anyone is assert yourself and get involved, I’m thinking a worthy cause would be ill served by these intellects.

Canadian Palin prank call over our heads

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ckoi-montreal-radio
American media outlets are distributing an expurgated transcript of the CKOI prank call to Governor Sarah Palin. Lots of the jokes made for International listeners were apparently lost on American reporters, as obviously on Palin. Prank caller assistant “Frank the Worker” introduces French President “Sarkozy” who then refers to French faux-ex-pat pop icon Johnny Hallyday as his American adviser, and the Quebec pop country buffoon Stef Carse as the Prime Minister of Canada, not Stephan Harper, the single Canadian we might know, in particular if we were governor of Alaska. Then the Masked Avenger tells Palin that his wife Carla Bruni wrote a song for her, “De rouge a levre sur un cochon” which means “lipstick on a pig!”

To be sure he speaks the phrase quickly, as if disbelieving himself that anyone would not recognize the joke.

The Masked Avengers, comedians Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel, often make fun of the typical American’s complete ignorance of Canadian politics. This prank call refers to the Prime Minister of Quebec Jean Charest, whom the caller assumes Palin would know, being “so next to him.” But they pretend his name is Richard Z. Sirois, who Canadian listeners would recognize is their CKOI cohost of “Les Cerveaux de l’info” (their radio show “The Info Brains”). It might be noted that the duo pulled an identical prank call on George W. Bush in 2000.

Here’s the full unexpurgated transcript of the CKOI prank call made to Governor Sarah Palin. Corrections are in bold. Notes and translations are in brackets.

HANDLER: This is Betsy.

RADIO HOST: Hello, Betsy.

HANDLER: Hi

RADIO HOST: Hi, this is Franc L’ouvrier, [trans. Frank the factory worker, a pun on Joe the Plumber] I am with president Sarkozy, on the line for Gov. Palin

HANDLER: Yes, one second please. Can you hold on one second, please?

RADIO HOST: Yeah, no problem.

HANDLER: Alright, thanks.

HANDLER 2: Hi, I’m gonna hand the phone over to her.

RADIO HOST: OK, thank you very much, I’m gonna put the president on the line

GOV. SARAH PALIN: This is Sarah.

RADIO HOST: Uh yeah, Gov. Palin?

GOV. PALIN: Hello.

RADIO HOST: Just hold on for President Sarkozy, one moment.

GOV. PALIN: [off line] Oh, it’s not him yet. I always do that.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Gov. Palin.

GOV. PALIN: [off line] I’ll just have people hand it to me right when it’s him.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Mrs. Governor?

GOV. PALIN: Hello, this is Sarah. How are you?

FAKE SARKOZY: Fine, and you? This is Nikolas Sarkozy speaking. How are you?

GOV. PALIN: Oh, so good, it’s so good to hear you. Thank you for calling us.

FAKE SARKOZY: Oh, it’s a pleasure.

GOV. PALIN: Thank you sir. We have such great respect for you, John McCain and I. We love you, and thank you for taking a few minutes to talk to me.

FAKE SARKOZY: I followed your campaigns very closely with my special American advisor, Johnny Hallyday.

GOV. PALIN: Yes, good.

FAKE SARKOZY: Excellent, are you confident?

GOV. PALIN: Very confident, and we’re thankful that polls are showing that the race is tightening.

FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I know very well that the campaign can be exhausting. How do you feel right now, my dear?

GOV. PALIN: I feel so good, I feel like we’re in a marathon and at the very end of the marathon you get your second wind and you plow through the finish.

FAKE SARKOZY: You see, I got elected in France because I’m real, and you seem to be someone who’s real as well.

GOV. PALIN: Yes, Nikolas we so appreciate this opportunity.

FAKE SARKOZY: You know, I see you as a president one day too.

GOV. PALIN: Haha, maybe in eight years.

FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I hope for you, you know we have a lot on common because personally, one of my favorite activities is to hunt, too.

GOV. PALIN: Oh, very good, we should go hunting together.

FAKE SARKOZY: Exactly, we could go try hunting by helicopter like you did. I never did that. Like we say in France, “on pourrait tuer des bebe phoques aussi.” [trans. “We could kill some baby seals too.”]

GOV. PALIN: Well, I think we could have a lot of fun together as we’re getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone that way.

FAKE SARKOZY: I just love killing those animals, mm mm, take away a life, that is so fun. I’d really love to go as long as we don’t bring vice president Cheney, haha.

GOV. PALIN: No, I’ll be a careful shot, yes.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, you know we have a lot in common because except that from my house [note: bad French accent makes this sound like “ass”] I can see Belgium. That’s kind of less interesting than you.

GOV. PALIN: Well, see, we’re right next door to other countries that we all need to be working with, yes.

FAKE SARKOZY: Some people said in the last days, and I thought that was mean, that you weren’t experienced enough in foreign relations and you know, that’s completely false. That’s what I said to my great friend, Prime Minister of Canada, Steph Carse [local Canadian singer who rerecorded Achy Breaky Heart, not Stephen Harper].

GOV. PALIN: Well, you know, he’s doing fine too, when you come into a position underestimated, it gives you an opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder.

FAKE SARKOZY: I was wondering, because you are SO NEXT TO HIM, one of my good friends the PM of Quebec, Mister Richard Zed Sirois. [Mr. Richard Z. Sirois is their KVOI “Les Cerveaux de l’info” radio co-host, not Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest] Have you met him recently? Has he come to one of your rallies?

GOV. PALIN: I haven’t seen him at one of the rallies, but it’s been great working with the Canadian officials in my role as governor. We have a great cooperative effort there, as we work on all of our resource development projects. You know, I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness; you’ve added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours.

FAKE SARKOZY: Thank you very much, you know my wife Carla would love to meet you. You know, even though she was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today.

GOV. PALIN: Well give her a big hug for me.

FAKE SARKOZY: You know my wife is a popular singer and a former HOT TOP MODEL. And she’s so hot in bed, she even wrote a song for you.

GOV. PALIN: Oh my goodness, I didn’t know that.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, in French it’s called “de rouge a levre sur une cochonne” [trans. “Lipstick on a pig!” but pig in the feminine can also mean a floozy], or if you prefer in English “Joe the Plumber” (sings:) “It is Life, Joe the Plumber”.

GOV. PALIN: Maybe she understands some of the unfair criticism, but I bet you she’s such a hard worker too and she realizes you just plow through that criticism.

FAKE SARKOZY: I just want to be sure, I don’t quite understand the phenomenon Joe the Plumber, that’s not your husband, right?

GOV. PALIN: That’s not my husband, but he’s a normal American who just works hard and doesn’t want government to take his money.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, yes, I understand. We have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France, it’s called “Marcel the Guy with Bread Under his Armpit”. Oui.

GOV. PALIN: Right, that’s what it’s all about, the middle class and government needing to work for them. You’re a very good example for us here.

FAKE SARKOZY: I seen a bit, but NBC, even Fox News wasn’t an ally, an ally, sorry about as much as usual.

GOV. PALIN: Yes, that’s what we’re up against.

FAKE SARKOZY: I must say, Gov. Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life – you know, Hustler’s “Nailin’ Palin”.

GOV. PALIN: Oh good, thank you.

FAKE SARKOZY: That was really edgy.

GOV. PALIN: Well good.

FAKE SARKOZY: I really loved you. And I must say something else Governor, [drops French accent] you’ve been pranked by the Masked Avengers, we’re two comedians from Montreal.

GOV. PALIN: Oh, [sic] we’ve been pranked. What radio station is this?

FAKE SARKOZY: This is for CKOY in Montreal.

GOV. PALIN: In Montreal? tell me their radio station call letters.

FAKE SARKOZY: CK… Hello? [to listeners] If one voice can change the world for Obama, one Viagra can change the world for McCain.

PALIN AID: I’m sorry, I have to let you go, thank you.

FAKE SARKOZY: Yay! Woohoo!

Oompah Loompahs meet Jackass

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Willy Wonka Oompah LoompahsBy all accounts, Seinfeld was a ground-breaking comedy. Purporting to be a show about nothing, it was in reality a pretty big something.

Unlike typical formulaic sitcoms, Seinfeld’s main characters had no roots, vague identities and a conscious indifference to morals. They also lacked any semblance of couth, which was key to the show’s success.

Seinfeld was funny not because it was about nothing, but because nothing was off the table. Racial stereotyping, anti-Semitism, masturbation, impotence, faked orgasms, personal hygiene issues, birth control — everything was comedic fodder. Jerry and the gang bulldozed political correctness into the dust and made us laugh, if uncomfortably, in the process.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when last week’s decade-old episode featured 6-foot-3-inch Kramer and his new midget friend, Mickey. I’m sure the relationship was funny at the time, but in today’s Hollywood diminutive actors are commonplace. I don’t know if the dwarf population has increased, or if “little people” are simply willing to be exploited by reality show dimwits. In any case, the bloom is off the mini rosebush.

All that said, I’ll bet Jerry Seinfeld would find something funny about ubiquitous midgets.

Midgets pulling a plane

However… the world’s foremost authority is now dead

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Professor ‘However’ Irwin Corey made a career out of burlesquing the pompous authority of academia, and he had the inane American university professor routine down pat. See Who Am the World’s Foremost Authority? A Lesson from Professor Irwin Corey for more info about this commie ‘professor’. However… next to nobody younger than 50 has probably heard of the guy, I will miss him. He was funny in a funny world, however he is now dead.

Wise sayings of The Professor…

‘If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.’
Professor Irwin Corey

‘Marriage is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, you lose interest.’
Professor Irwin Corey

Professor Irwin Corey on youtube. The New York Times A Life in Comedy and a hipper-hopper version of The Professor as ‘Sammy Fine’

Theater critic Kenneth Tynan said of the Professor, “Corey is a cultural clown, a parody of literacy, a travesty of all that our civilization holds dear and one of the funniest grotesques in America. He is Chaplin’s clown with a college education.”

Celebrities to soothe airport terror anxiety

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In an airport the other day I overheard Connie Chung making an announcement. Our national threat level is elevated to Orange apparently, further precautions are necessary, etc, etc, please report any suspicious activity to the TSA.

Was that Connie Chung’s voice? Why? What was wrong with the usual anonymous voice paging John Smith, paging Mister John Smith? Was a celebrity voice necessary? Did her publicist get Connie the gig, was it a court ordered community service, or did the Department of Homeland Security feel a familiar yet authorative voice was a necessary means to ease passenger suspicion that they are the dupes?

So here was Connie Chung doing her part to calm the travelling masses being led to their ignoble fate of unreasonable suspicion. I don’t know why, I thought of Judas Goats in the slaughterhouses. Does Connie have to Fedex a recording to the TSA at each elevation of the Threat Level?

Now I remember seeing Homeland Security TSA infomercials starring a variety of famous comedians, playing on monitors above the first post-911 lines awaiting the beefed-up airport security. So you laugh off, or shrug off while laughing, the indignity of being told to take off your shoes for the inspectors. Most people bring flip-flops to the gym navigate the few steps from the locker room to the showers lest they contract someone else’s athlete’s foot. These same people are being forced to share foot fungus with thousands more public soles than they are accustomed.

As I was about to board the airplane, I was called out for an additional search by a TSA officer. By called out, I do not mean approached, nor addressed. He simply barked “Sir. Step over here.” He may have said please, I do not remember it in his abruptness. Instead I was looking beside me to see to whom he might have been addressing his command. Maybe I had come in after he had begun with a salutation as is customary when strangers initiate communication. Having seen no one beside me, I looked back at the uniformed TSA guy in time for him to shout “STEP OVER HERE!”

I’m of course only about to respond “Who? Me?” but he’s already talking over me shouting his order again. I was left with no option but to offer my hasty compliance.

I’d have to say I was too startled to fuss about his manners, and I was eager to get aboard the plane, but I would otherwise have loved to mess with this little tin-pot jerk.

I had no objection to being frisked again, or to having my bag searched once more for whatever items I may have purchased from Southland Corporation in the terminal after the last security check. But I will not be shouted at. No.

And my thoughts return to the celebrities trying to facilitate our compliance. I’m reminded of Tadeusz Borowski’s memoir of the concentration camps “This way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.”