“1/2 Hour News Hour” is 30 Minutes Too Long

It’s no secret that I’m a great fan of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. It’s also no secret that my politics generally lean to the left, and that I voted for John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential elections. I have spared few words lambasting America’s current administration, referring to them as everything from fear junkies to war-mongers.

Many people would argue that my personal politics and my love of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report go hand in hand. They may be right to assume such things, but anyone who would go further and assume that I watch these shows simply because I’m a Democrat forget one thing: Above all else, I am a humorist, and The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both painfully funny.

The same cannot be said of FOX News Channel’s brand-new, right-wing answer to The Daily Show, The 1/2 Hour News Hour, though I doubt you’d be able to convince any of FNC’s devotees, already brainwashed by the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, to admit that. As I watched clips from the first episode of The 1/2 Hour News Hour today during a break from writing my next column, I had to keep reminding myself that the people who created this show, like the people who will ultimately champion it as an in-your-face challenge to Jon Stewart and his show, are the same people who tout Ann Coulter as being the funniest writer since Dave Barry.

The fact is that The 1/2 Hour News Hour is to The Daily Show what the worst Mad TV sketch is to the very best of Saturday Night Live. In fact, it’s even worse than that. I don’t think that executives at FOX quite understand that lifting vitriolic quotes from people like O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh and layering the worst laugh track since M*A*S*H*¹ over them does not comedic gold produce.

I’ve already been told that I just don’t “get” The 1/2 Hour News Hour, that, somehow, the show’s witty satire has just gone completely over my pointed, liberal head. This is the same claim made by fans of Coulter, who would have us believe that her suggestion that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be fed rat poison is satire at its finest.

Before I continue, I think it’s important to define just what, exactly, is satire. Merriam-Webster offers the following definition:

satire – (noun) trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly

Stephen Colbert’s portrayal of a Bill O’Reillyesque conservative blowhard on The Colbert Report is satire. Suggesting that another person should be poisoned is not, neither is Rush Limbaugh acting in a sketch in which he is President of the United States with Ann Coulter as his V.P. That’s just scary. Really, really scary. Freddy-Krueger-performing-my-next-pelvic-exam scary.

I’m not saying that Ann Coulter isn’t allowed to keep doing what she does simply because she wrongly defines her writing style, nor am I suggesting that The 1/2 Hour News Hour should be canceled because it’s got the comedic value of a five-car pile-up. There is an audience–a large, loud audience–for both, an audience which may rightly feel that its views and ideals are not fairly represented in comedy. The problem is that, with The 1/2 Hour News Hour, they’re still not being fairly represented, at least not when you beg comparison to Comedy Central’s current line-up.

As a liberal Democrat, the blatant suckitude and canned laughter of The 1/2 Hour News Hour delights me to no end, but as a humorist, the show only makes me cringe. Comedy is supposed to unite people through laughter, not send them tearing for their toilets. The only suggestion I would have for the folks over at The 1/2 Hour News Hour is that, before they compare themselves to the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, they actually watch a few episodes of the shows which they are so obviously and erroneously attempting to imitate. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, The 1/2 Hour News Hour has insulted the entire planet.

¹This is not a slight against M*A*S*H*, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest television shows ever produced. This is merely a slight against the network-enforced canned laughter, which did nothing but upset me when it cut into the show’s brilliant, fast-paced dialogue like a dull knife.