Not being an aficionado of Fox News I missed the ballyhoo attending the launch of Gutfeld! which is apparently to comedy what Jeb! was to the 2016 GOP ticket and you know how well that one worked out. The Greg Gutfeld show is supposed to be the equivalent of SNL or Colbert, or Gawd alone knows what. It is mean spirited and unfunny, but it does have one redeeming feature, which I find endearing: the reviews are entertaining as hell. The thing itself hasn’t made me laugh but the reactions and reviews are howlers.

Take a look at this tripe and then read what professional comedians say.

The show is so far built around the idea that cheap shots and exhuming five year old scandals are supposed to be comical. Gutfield does have a Bill Maher delivery but without any of that self-reflexive, in tune with the audience kind of patois which Johnny Carson pioneered and which Stephen Colbert and Maher have in spades. If you’re going topical and edgy you have to read the room. This guy is reading the teleprompter.

But this is actually hilarious.

Now this is comedy. Hit the bottom clip and howl.

Gutfeld will never find the right-wing equivalent of the left, because it doesn’t exist. Speaking truth to power is not the same as bullying, but they can’t discern that, obviously. So Gutfeld’s got nothing to do but reach uncomfortably far out there and as anybody who has ever written comedy will tell you, you reach too far, you risk falling flat on your ass.

Daily Beast:

Former Daily Show producer—and current Oscar nominee for writing Borat Subsequent Moviefilm—Jena Friedman instantly recognized the similarities, telling The Daily Beast, “It’s like watching a guy going through a divorce doing an impression of Bill Maher,” adding, “His Bill Maher impression isn’t bad!”

“He reminds me of the boss whose jokes you’re forced to laugh at,” she continued. “I didn’t think it was bad for someone who has never done comedy… just a little bitter and angry.”

“Just because something has the cadence of a joke does not make it a joke,” former Nightly Show writer Sasha Stewart added, before also referencing the tepid laughter that could be heard in the background. “I’m sorry for the five staffers who make up the laugh track. I know they’re staffers because it’s the kind of sharp, pained laugh of a person who’s barely getting paid enough to be there.”

Conan writer Laurie Kilmartin was reluctant to directly criticize the “competition” but she did tweet this “promo” for the show before it aired:

Fox News is obviously desperate for ratings. If you can stand one more clip, you’ve got to see this.

One comedian summed it up, and maybe this is how it will go:

The grotesque always keeps one’s attention. That’s the nature of the grotesque, that you cannot look away, you’re both repelled yet captivated, simultaneously. Let’s see if grotesque turns into ratings. This is too simple minded even for the MAGAs, but maybe I’m wrong.

 

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4 COMMENTS

    • I’m not sure what they’re aiming at, but it seems to be a right-wing Colbert or some such. That’s not going to happen. Colbert is not only a master comedian, the material he takes from today’s headlines is genuinely ridiculous. The entire world sees it that way. Jokes about Joe Biden’s microwave are not in the same league as Matt Gaetz’ sex trafficking, for example.

  2. With comedians like Carlson, Ingraham and Hannity already engaged in comedy and satire ala SNL’s Weekend Update, why does Faux Entertainment feel the need to add yet another clown???

  3. Gutfeld: “Let’s joke about how OLD Biden is! That won’t offend Fox News viewers at all!” BTW, Greg, it was Kellyanne Conway who seriously suggested that microwaves can be turned into cameras.

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