posted 2007/02/22 at 21:15
After Keith Olbermann mentioned the show so many times this past week on Countdown, I figured I should go check out whatever clips of Fox News' new show The ½ Hour News Hour I could find on YouTube. (Search link since I'm guessing YouTube will remove individual clips pointed out by Fox News.) I don't think the phrase "Those were thirty minutes of my life I'd like to have back" have never been more true for me than at this moment. I honestly think I would have preferred to watch something more overtly hostile against Democrats and left-wingers, because then at least the show would seem to serve some purpose. As it is, the writers of the show seem to have absolutely zero idea what the tenets of comedy are. If there were any actual jokes in the show, I'd like to have them pointed out to me.
Honestly, what offends me the most about The ½ Hour News Hour so much is the fact that they would so deliberately rip off the name and format of one of my favourite Canadian comedies of all time, This Hour Has 22 Minutes. I haven't watched the show as much these past few years after all the various cast changes, but 22 Minutes still kicks the crap out of nearly all the political comedy America produces. Even though I've never followed Canadian politics all that closely, I still get the jokes because the writers have such finely-honed senses of comedy.
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to discuss The Colbert Report, one of the few television shows I make a point of watching these days. It kind of sickened me when late last year Nancy Pelosi said it would be a bad idea for congresspeople to go on the "Better Know a District" segment, because in their continuing attempts to copy Republicans, the Democrats seem to think it's a good idea to take themselves way too seriously. Apart from the kid-gloves stuff that comes out at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner and the occasional appearance to do a Top Ten list on Late Show with David Letterman, you just don't see politicians in America of any stripe -- and yes, I include my fellow Greens in this -- able to have a good laugh at their own expense.
I mention this in the context of 22 Minutes because at my peak of watching the show -- back when Jean Chrétien was Prime Minister -- he actually appeared on the show on numerous occasions (here's just one), and the situations the people from 22 Minutes put him in far exceeded anything Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart could ever dream of getting away with. Nearly every week on 22 Minutes you will see fairly high-ranking members of Canadian political parties really put through the ringer, and if nothing else the Canadian people as a whole respect them more because of it. Where have American political parties gotten the idea that the way to win the public over is for candidates to never portray any sense of humour, or only to use humour as a way to denigrate political opponents?
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon