Utopia Talk / Politics / WTF happened to late night TV?

Rugian Member	Wed Feb 10 14:29:44 When I was a younger man, late night TV was that thing you watched when you wanted to unwind and hear a couple of smile-inducing jokes before passing out for the night. I knew that Trump broke late night by turning the hosts into political hacks. But I didn't realize how bad it's actually gotten. Here's Jimmy Kimmel's monologue last night: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVs2XBikjHI THERE'S NO COMEDY! It's literally just "Hi everyone, I hate Republicans" *play news clip from earlier today* "Republicans are bad" *play news clip* "Republicans are cowards" *play news clip*. Not even a hint of an attempt at humor; its a straight-up political rant. You could literally get the same experience from watching MSNBC or CNN. And apparently no one WANTS any comedy either. None of the video comments say anything about how the show is funny; they're all serious political statements about how they agree with Kimmel that Trump and Republicans are bad. Seriously, why would you want to close out your day by watching a political screed? What kind of person wants to go to bed being angry at the orange man? I don't get it. IBTY/TW, what do you actually get out of these shows?
Y2A Member	Wed Feb 10 14:51:50 ignoring your post above Leno ruined it by trying to screw over Conan.
Rugian Member	Wed Feb 10 15:02:11 Incorrect. Leno had a good if rather uninspired show. Leno is also on record about how PC has been destroying comedy, so points go to him. But same question to you Y2A. What do you get out of watching a comedy show that lacks any actual comedy?
Rugian Member	Wed Feb 10 15:02:51 Also, I'm still looking for the day when we can finally deport you.
Im better then you 2012 UP Football Champ	Wed Feb 10 15:29:10 Why do you always assume I'm doing what Sean Hannity says "Liberals are doing"? Its not Kimmel's fault Republicans are a joke. If you want funny Kimmel here http://www...AkiQNdWn6bbKUr-P1wuSm0&index=1 if you want political funny here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rDbWz63wiQ&list=PLs4hTtftqnlAkiQNdWn6bbKUr-P1wuSm0
Paramount Member	Wed Feb 10 15:40:38 Maybe they need more time to adapt to Trump being gone. Trump basically did all the work for all the comedians, they didn’t need to make an effort. Trump delivered all the humor and funny things to them. So they are spoiled and needs time to revert back to how it was before Trump when they actually had to come up with funny jokes themselves.
kargen Member	Wed Feb 10 16:09:01 "WTF happened to late night TV?" It was replaced by internet porn.
Rugian Member	Wed Feb 10 16:15:58 Kargen Sadly, even internet porn has become politically correct: "Doing Better. Considering recent events in America, the team at IAFD would like to state unequivocally and firmly that black lives matter. The murder of George Floyd, along with the murders of countless other black folks at the hands of police in America is cause for alarm and concern. We stand with the protesters exercising their first amendment rights – the same right we enjoy by documenting and archiving adult film data here at IAFD. We stand up for black performers who have been made to feel fetishized, minimized, and othered in these categories. We do not condone the racist pay gaps between performers in IR scenes. We are dismayed when we hear stories that black performers in group scenes need to mind who they come in contact with because a fellow performer “doesn’t do blacks yet” since performing with a black man can command a higher rate and is usually saved for later in one’s career. In striving to be the change we want to see in the world, we are eliminating the IR (“Interracial”) tag on our site. Internally among the editorial staff, we have believed that interracial porn largely serves to uphold racist stereotypes and imagery – stereotypes and imagery that inform acts of racist hatred. We feel its narrow definition – black men fucking white women – only serves to further a narrative started hundreds of years ago; one with deserves to be relegated to the history books. We justified tracking this information because the industry embraces and promotes it. No more. We won’t be a part of it. We have also eliminated race-based categories in our annual Spank Bank Awards. In the absence of a fund to directly help adult film performers, we have made a donation to The Black Sex Worker Collective, an organization which seeks to address the needs of current and former Black sex workers by providing education, legal assistance, healthcare resources, and affordable housing referrals in order to successfully leave & maintain a life outside of the industry. Their goal is to create a safe space where the unique experiences and needs of Black sex worker voices are validated and responded with appropriate needs based resources. This is by no means the end of IAFD’s commitment to racial justice. As always IAFD remains committed to ensuring that all customers continue to have free and available access to the most recent and accurate information about adult films and the performers who appear in them. We are committed to doing better. We will continue to listen and learn and improve on who we are and what we put out to the world." http://blog.iafd.com/2020/06/08/doing-better/
Rugian Member	Wed Feb 10 16:23:40 IBTY You literally get your news from Vice and Vox. This may come as a surprise to you, but you don't exactly come off as a free thinker. Paramount The problem is that even with Trump they weren't funny, just ranting. Somewhere along the way, Kimmel and his ilk decided that crying about Republicans taking away dad's healthcare beats out trying to be funny.
habebe Member	Wed Feb 10 18:18:29 when did pbs become the public MSNBC? Political comedy has been going downhill since Jon Stewart quit.I have never found ome SINGLE trevor Noah " joke" funny. He is worse than Craig kilborn. Is Craig Ferguson around? he was my favorite interviewer on late night.
Dukhat Member	Wed Feb 10 19:28:42 Trump crossed so many lines and was so criminal that there's really not a joke there. He kind of ruined late night and he ruined political jokes. They never even had White House correspondents dinners either and those were usually hilarious. Like Alec Baldwin's Trump was hilarious when everyone though Trump couldn't win. It became unfunny when Trump was president because it's hard to joke about a person who was literally a criminal and ignorant racist piece-of-shit. Republicans killed comedy by being so seriously committed to ignorance and corruption that you couldn't parody it anymore like you could with Bush because it actually reflected the truth of who they are.
Habebe Member	Wed Feb 10 20:22:37 Baldwin's Trump sucked. Darrell Hammond was the better Trump. But sure, blame Republicans for turning left wing extremist comedians unfunny because they are not funny. Its like they are trying to be Bill Maher who is 20% funny and 80% newsy , except Maher is actually entertaining. Seth, Noah and Kimmel are not.
obaminated Member	Wed Feb 10 21:38:45 I remember when jimmy k would don black face while impersonating karl malone. I guess he feels he needs to really prove he is a lefty because that footage could destroy his career if he tries to be unbias.
jergul large member	Thu Feb 11 03:43:01 Its a lot of fun to watch people comment on comedians they obviously do not watch. Let me try. I know you guys think habebe is a dick in this forum. I sadly have to confirm he is a lot worse in real life. Fun!
Habebe Member	Thu Feb 11 07:34:29 Jergul, That's accurate though. I do watch bill Maher and did watch craig often. I tried with Noah. Quite a bit actually.The man doesnt have a funny bone in his body. Anuome who thinks Trevor Noah is an improvement over him Stewart is lying.
Nekran Member	Thu Feb 11 10:36:33 I stopped watching the Daily Show after Stuart left... I also don't find Noah funny at all. Can't say I tried that much though... the offer of entertainment has become so overwhelming, I've lost the will to persevere with any that doesn't immediately grab me.
Cherub Cow Member	Fri Feb 12 06:00:53 [IAFD]: "We do not condone the racist pay gaps between performers in IR scenes." lol Here we go with this misinformed narrative again; it's the WNBA/NBA "pay gap" thing again. Pay differences exist based on profitability. Certain stars are less profitable than others. Certain people will pay more to see certain stars. Certain audiences spend more money than other audiences. .. [habebe]: "Is Craig Ferguson around? he was my favorite interviewer on late night." His show ended and he did funny indy/vlog stuff for a while, and now he's doing some game show that doesn't really let him control the pacing since he has to keep the show moving :/ .. [habebe]: "Political comedy has been going downhill since Jon Stewart quit.I have never found ome SINGLE trevor Noah " joke" funny." Noah sucks — always has, always will. Stewart should not have given him the show, but he did that idiotic "step aside"/"surrender power" thing instead of looking for someone funny or someone who had built laudable integrity over time. And after Stewart's show, the correspondents all went full party line. Samantha Bee, Larry Wilmore, Jon Oliver, Trevor Noah.. zero imagination, just regurgitated CNN talking points. Even Colbert flipped his own script when he went to the Late Show. On Colbert Report, to satire GOP positions, Colbert actually had to understand those positions, so the jokes were better informed. But now on Late Show he has a dedicated partisan audience built in so there is no need to be informed; he just spews uninformed opinions from the DNC corporate script. It's the same with the others. I was watching Oliver every single week for months, but in researching his episodes or watching episodes about subjects with which I was already familiar, I found that he was outright lying. An example was his patent litigation episode; he was basically reading from the script of mega-corporations that were trying to sway culture to get law-makers to make it easier for them to bypass existing patent laws so that they could steam roll independent innovators (this explained further here: http://www...-the-world-as-well-as-politics ). Leading into COVID, every episode about the BLM riots had more lies and misrepresentations. He outright lied about "Defund the police" not meaning "abolish", he propagated Noah's "social contract" [justification for riot violence] narrative, told outright lies about the Rittenhouse case (he stated information that was false and which was correctable *days* before the episode even aired), advocated for the 1619 Project (a liar's history of the U.S.), advocated for abolishment of the Electoral College, and otherwise took up every DNC corporate narrative his overlords could send him. His only answers to opponents were written in "[Fuck you, Tucker Carlson!]" screams, which only made me start watching Tucker Carlson clips on the same subject to see why Oliver was so irrationally upset. Noah does the same. His "Pink Tax" episode (March, 2019; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As2p2vsdrfk ) was total fabrication. His "reporter" actually staged items in retail stores to propagate the show's lie. Noah's Rittenhouse episode also lied about verifiable case details. He does not challenge intellectual dishonesty, as in his corporatist fellatio performance interview of Obama (December, 2020; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy3IsfyS2Ng ). His is a platform of malicious misinformation. That's the saddest thing. Daily Show and Colbert used to be fun sources of political information because they would call out the powers, but the powers bought them out. Colbert was bought by mega-corp CBS. Comedy Central started hiring mega-corp loyalist writers for Daily Show. Kimmel was given the same treatment; from Man Show to the Nihilist Show. Even Howard Stern has become an apologist for his own past. They've all been purchased. When Stewart returned from holiday, he didn't even realize that anarchist thought had been ousted, and he was called a Trump supporter. He's walking into the DNC "Animal House" late and has to play catch-up ( http://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/58ad2dae-0990-49e4-937a-28c93c06c7ae ). With mega-corporations solidifying media control of previously helpful sources, this means that the truth has migrated. "The [new 'truth'] has a well-known [corporate] bias." Bow to the new corporate masters — a good dystopia craves them. Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and America, a nation reborn.
jergul large member	Fri Feb 12 07:01:19 CC does a great job on showcasing MAGA transformation from anti-establishment to a true cult revolutionary movement.
patom Member	Fri Feb 12 10:41:39 Ah for the good old days when we could buy 45's with whole skits dedicated to making fun of the Kennedy clan. Even Nixon made it easy for comedians, then came Ford who kept tripping on the golf course, followed by Carter who had brother Billy for comedy relief. I was on the road for most of Reagans terms so didn't get to see much TV. Now I'm usually in bed before late night comes on.
Rugian Member	Fri Feb 12 11:14:57 Daily Show and Colbert Report just "looked" balanced during the GWB years because that's when both shows first blew up. Bush was in power then, so of course it made sense for the shows to focus their critical attention on him. But then Obama and a Democratic Congress got elected. And who did Stewart and Colbert lampoon during those following years? Oh yeah, minority Republicans, despite the fact they were completely in the political wilderness during that time. The reality is that both hosts were always political hacks posing as comedians. After 2009 I went from being a near-daily viewer to barely watching them. Stewart was better than Noah though. Same phenomenon occurred with Olbermann. In retrospect he was never anything more than a partisan douche, but during the Bush years his wannabe Edgar R Murrow shtick was more believable; he appeared to simply be speaking truth to power, rather than acting as a Democratic operative. It was only when he failed to pivot towards using the same critical eye on Obama that his manifest bias was made clear.
jergul large member	Fri Feb 12 11:23:36 So they are only funny in cycles when democrats do not have the trifecta because truth to power is the key element in comedy? That is exactly what Aristotle said!
jergul large member	Fri Feb 12 11:25:21 "According to Aristotle, comedy is an imitation of inferior people; however, that is not to say characters in comedies are inferior in every way. A comedy is a play that depicts some sort of “laughable error” or disgrace that, in turn, elicits some emotion in the audience, such as embarrassment or delight. A comedy does not evoke fear or pity from the audience, as these emotions are particular to tragedy." Perhaps the GOP remains a target because it is literally laughable?
Rugian Member	Fri Feb 12 11:34:36 Jergul Wow, awesome fallacy there bro. "Only conservatives need to be satirized because conservatives are the only ones with silly views." That sort of lack of tolerance for half the country's political beliefs is part of what drives people to the likes of Trump. Its clear that you don't want to coexist with American Republicans, so why would they want to coexist with you? Either you are a political satire show that criticizes the government of the day, or you're a show that's devoted to serving as a wing of the Democratic Party. The first I can appreciate, because turnaround is fair play. The latter is hackers, and I'm not interested in hearing from a comedian-pundit who obviously despises everything I believe in.
Rugian Member	Fri Feb 12 11:35:35 Hackers -> hackery
Dukhat Member	Fri Feb 12 11:54:22 Pretty sure it's not half the country. More like 20% and another 25% hold their nose and vote Republican because they're idiots that only care about one issue and use facebook to lie to themselves about how bad Democrats are. Fortunately those idiots are all dying off ... like your dumb dad.
jergul large member	Fri Feb 12 14:07:51 Ruggy The Fox channel has comedians that do satire. They may not realize they are comedians doing satire, but that just makes it more funny.
habebe Member	Fri Feb 12 18:58:54 Cherub, Oliver definitely could use some fact checking and context. He is the funniest out of the group though. He is another one though that will take serious positions alongside his comedy and when called out on it hides behind " I'm just a comedian"
Dukhat Member	Fri Feb 12 22:20:11 Noone thinks of Oliver as a journalist ... unlike the rubes that watch Fox News.
habebe Member	Fri Feb 12 22:24:45 A rose by any other name. His comedy definitely has journalistic tones.
habebe Member	Fri Feb 12 22:25:18 Jimmy sore is a comedian first as well, but is also a pundit/journalist.
Dukhat Member	Fri Feb 12 23:06:55 Pundit yes. The Daily Show had lots of commentary as well. But they aren't journalists and don't claim to be. I know I'm getting an editorialized view of the world. Fox News viewers think Hannity and Co. are truth. Well not anymore since they failed to claim Trump lost but still mostly they view it as hard news.
habebe Member	Sat Feb 13 01:55:51 Meh, fair enough.
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Feb 14 05:05:25 [Rugian]: "Daily Show and Colbert Report just "looked" balanced during the GWB years because that's when both shows first blew up. Bush was in power then, so of course it made sense for the shows to focus their critical attention on him." Agreed.. I think that's the only reason that Stewart stayed more above the fray than the others. His tenure ended in 2015, so he didn't get his ideology exposed the way the others did by Trump's very presence. He also did not join Twitter until January 2021, so we didn't have to see his unfiltered and inane thoughts the way we did with the others who had shows and social media presence. Incidentally, social media turned a lot of these people into lunatics. Imagine if Jon Stewart had joined Twitter in 2016... he might have turned into Robert Reich or one of these losers who spend every waking moment looking for incendiary hot takes to traffic. .. [habebe]: "He is the funniest out of the group though." Yes, and I think that's why I stuck with him longer than the others. His shows were particularly well-written early on, and in a weekly format they were able to add a lot of production value to the comedy. With COVID, it's just Oliver in a white room, so they can only cover up the lies with so many cut-aways. .. [habebe]: "He is another one though that will take serious positions alongside his comedy and when called out on it hides behind " I'm just a comedian"" Yep. Incidentally, that's a similar strategy to that of modern media: present a big lie upfront and first, and only partially correct the lie in small font later. Any lies not corrected or opposed by the party's own members become canon for the party narrative. In Oliver's case, when he makes glaring errors, he *never* issues retractions, except sarcastically (e.g., his fake retractions skit from 2018, praised here by Rolling Stone, http://www...ions-last-week-tonight-716023/ ). He simply moves on without any sense of continuity, hoping his viewers will not notice or care. The DNC corporate narrative cannot be interrupted by truth, so it's particularly effective on those with poor memories or a low sense of detail. .. [Dukhat]: "More like 20% and another 25% hold their nose and vote Republican because they're idiots that only care about one issue and use facebook to lie to themselves about how bad Democrats are." Any large group is going to have idiots. One barrier to maintaining party principles is that at some point in size composition, the party inevitably invites idiots to strengthen its numeric position. If Imgur is any indication, the DNC has plenty of idiots to go around. But I kind of wonder about the people who earnestly explain away the motivation of millions by saying that so many GOP voters must simply be idiots. It's part of the same problem belief that by extension makes DNC voters think that they must automatically be intelligent by their vote alone — ignoring their own mental deficits in the process. Just imagine the mountains of evidence that this requires that a person deny: all of the doctors, lawyers, scientists, researchers, strategists, business owners, and creatives who vote GOP. And imagine the people making the statement — some who barely survived high school believing that they have had their intelligence legitimized by a choice which at the ballot box may as well have been decided by a coin toss for all of its variability.
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