Oh boy. Ooooh boy. There is a new conservative comedy-show hosted by a MAGA. And it's so bad.

[DetlefK]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-trump-tv-channel-oan-has-a-comedy-show-so-terrible-it-might-actually-be-funny?ref=home

It's due next month and they have released segments as teasers. I made it halfway through the 8-minute teaser before I gave up. The only funny bit was where they compared Julian Assange to Tom Hank's character in castaway.

Let's consider for example the bit about illegal immigration:
1. The host tells the audience that the Trump-administration is doing everything to secure the border.
2. Then the host imitates Pelosi/Schumer admitting that illegal immigrants vote for Democrats.
3. Up next, he reads out an AOC-tweet where she calls on the US to focus on the underlying causes of immigration, like climate-change.
4. Not even adressing her point, the host calls her an idiot.
End of segment.

That's not comedy. He's parroting republican talking-points while insulting Democrats. How is that funny?
- There is no transition from reality to the bizzare. Does he even know that the Trump-administration refused a democratic offer to secure the border because it would have saved DACA? Does he even recognize that the immigration-policies of the Trump-administration are intentionally cruel by their own admission?
- Does he even know that no Democrat has ever said something like that? Does he know that illegal immigrants can't vote?
- And AOC's tweet would have been a chance to call her out and criticize her, to explain to the audience why she's wrong! And what do we get instead? "You're an idiot!"



You cannot have comedy if you refuse to accept reality in the first place.

One more piece of evidence that conservatives can't do comedy. And when people refuse to watch that boring and cringy shit, conservatives will cry discrimination.

[rusty quoin]

1. I've seen this type of shit for probably 20 years.

I heard Rush since the late 80s. It is comedy to them. They like cruelty. It makes them feel good.

[scrutineer]

18. google limbaugh sajak tv

Pat Sajak had a short lived late night tv show. Limbaugh guest hosted.

It was hilarious, but not in the way Limbaugh wanted.

They had to evict the studio audience.

Rushbo's flopsweat could have filled a swimming pool.

[Hugin]

2. Did I just feel a lurch toward Idiocracy?

Right wing "comedy" has left many careers in ruins.

Trump's mocking of a disabled journalist qualifies in that venue. The MAGAts find such antics to be hilarious.

[NanceGreggs]

3. Think about their 'target' audience.

They are trying to appeal to people who think high comedy is putting a whoopy-cushion under Uncle Chester’s ass at the Christmas dinner table.

They’re too stupid to understand satire, too uneducated to comprehend nuance, and far too uninformed to ‘get’ references to current events as they have actually unfolded, rather than what they’ve been told is going on.

They’ve tried these shows before – they always fail spectacularly.

Republican knuckle-draggers (which is their target audience) just don’t have no humour genes – and that’s a fact.

[Hugin]

6. and most importantly...

They don't buy anything. (With money, authoritarian horsecrap they gobble up by the ladle full) Outside of cheap beer and fast food.

A local radio station experimented with a Right-wing slant and after losing their advertisers, a couple of trips through receivership, and a change of ownership, it took them 25 years to recover profitability.

[JHB]

14. I think the main model is "Mallard Fillmore", the funniest thing about which...

...is the fact that it owes its continued existence to a quota system. Gotta balance out "liberal" strips like Doonsbury (and, in the past, Bloom County and The Boondocks) to get conservatives to complain at 3 decibels lower than usual.

The "joke" is always the same: Liberals are stupid and venal, Liberals are stupid and venal, Liberals are stupid and venal, etc. ad nauseum.

Never do they do what their "opposite numbers" have done, wandering off on their own tangents and, from time to time, poking fun at themselves.




The thing is, "Mallard" has relatively low overhead, can be read in a few seconds, and usually comes as a freebie in someone else's publication. Not really enough to support a TV show, at least not without heavy subsidy.

[NYC Liberal]

4. Good comedy is subversive, which is inherently antithetical to conservatism as a principle.

Conservative "comedy" almost always punches down. It's usually just mocking people who have little power.

[rpannier]

5. So, what idiot is blowing a wad of cash on this failure?

I think they tried a comedy show a few years back (1/2 hours news hour?), supported by some actual (sort of) comedians and people with experience in TV and movies: Manny Coto, Joel Surnow, Ken Davitian, Dennis Miller, Kurt Long and it was a mess and a ratings disaster -- even the Chicago Tribune thought it was garbage

[MrScorpio]

7. Great comedy comes from truth that punches up...

Hence, why delusional bullies who always punch down are never ever funny.

[VOX]

10. Precisely! And the sharpest comics/comic actors are always outsiders.

They’re not in with the country-club set or knocking back brews in some redneck bar.

The classic masters — Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, etc.) are all individuals who didn’t “fit in,” or who weren’t allowed to fit in. They’re on the outside looking in, always.

[anarch]

8. the "conservative" idea of comedy is to watch a minority be tormented

or a liberal get beat up or something. "Once again this year at the Conservative Film Review, the short film 'Man Gets Hit in Balls with Football' takes the top honors in the comedy category.

[scrutineer]

16. Exactly. A bunch of seventh graders punching down on the littlest, weakest kid is laugh riot

for these freaks.

There's a reason there aren't any successful conservative comedians - comedy is in touch with reality and conservatives aren't.

[VOX]

9. Fascists like their "humor" crude, and it's always tough on underdogs.

Their speciality consists of taking shots at the impoverished, asylum seekers, POC, women, LGBT folk, etc.

There is absolutely nothing funny about it, unless you’re a Republican asshole who’s ginned up on fear and anger.

[PA Democrat]

11. It's been tried before. Dennis Miller's show was a total flop.

They had to pay people to sit in the audience.

[Tarc]

12. Conservatives are bad at comedy, even worse at parody & satire

It's out at the obscure, deep end of political memory, but does anyone remember Fox News' attempt at a right-leaning Daily Show?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1/2_Hour_News_Hour

[VOX]

13. Fascist propaganda sprinkled on a steaming turd.

I actually watched the whole promo. It’d be perfect fodder for a public-access channel, where it could die a well-earned swift death.

[rickford66]

15. Comedy and satire must have the "ring of truth"

[DFW]

17. What they will never get:

Incompetence and clumsiness can be funny. Meanness and cruelty are never funny.

That's why the Keystone Kops were funny. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was not.
That's why everyone makes fun of Trump, not McConnell.

WHY will they never get it? Because the ones trying to be funny are mean and cruel. That's why.