Seven Things That Are Horribly Wrong with "The Half-Hour News Hour"

Last November, America first caught a whiff of a horrifying prospect -- Fox News was getting into the comedy business with a right-leaning Daily Show rip called This Just In, produced by 24's Joel "Laff Riot" Surnow.

Surprise! The retitled Half-Hour News Hour sucks monstrously. Sucks the plasma from the screen. It could only have sucked worse if Surnow had cast Chevy Chase and Stephen A. Smith as co-anchors.

When Surnow announced the concept, he claimed:

"It's not going to hit you over the head with partisan politics," Surnow said. "It'll hit anything that deserves to be hit."

It's Fox News. You decide. This is the two-minute clip from the pilot that the producers decided would best reel in the viewers:

Oy, that laugh track. Did they clone an army of FM Morning Zoo sidekicks? Did they put magic mushrooms in the Orange Whip?

Mocking this show is so easy, it's guilt-inducing. It's like making fun of the Emirates ice hockey team or Pat Robertson. But here we go.

Seven Things That Are Horribly Wrong with The Half-Hour News Hour.

1. This Just In, the original title of this atrocity, was also the title of the second segment of The Daily Show during both the Kilbourn and early Jon Stewart eras. But they actually changed the title because AOL's using it now for a broadband channel.

2. The jokey new title, The Half-Hour News Hour, is itself a multi-recycled joke. ABC ran a summertime variety show called The Half Hour Comedy Hour in the early-'80s, and MTV later ran a Half-Hour Comedy Hour standup show that launched Sandler, Spade, and others who would later send SNL into an early-'90s tailspin.

3. The The Half-Hour News Hour title also, possibly unintentionally, mocks the title of the only television program that has stood steadfast against dumbing down and shallowing its news values, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

4. Joel Surnow. I've never missed an episode of 24 in six nonstop seasons, and I can honestly say that I find it to be one of the funniest shows on broadcast television. Every time I manage to tune out the thumping music and really tune in to the instant building schematics and distrustful glances and the inevitable phone call from the bad-guy-behind-the-bad-guy to the bad-guy-behind-the-bad-guy-behind-the-bad-guy, I laugh so hard I wet the couch. The great irony is that 24 is consistently hilarious without actually ever attempting comic relief.

Does Surnow have any background in comedy? Yes, he apparently wrote one or more episodes of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures, the TV show.

5 It's about as timely as the US News lying around in the Jiffy Lube waiting room. From Yahoo News:

The producers were conscious of the fact that there would be a long lead time before the shows aired. "We were very careful to choose issues that were still going to be around" by the time the show aired...

Long lead time? They have a Marion Barry joke.

6. Conservatives don't do comedy. This isn't to say that conservatives can't be funny; they just can't be comedians. They're the Germans of America. "Zank you. I'll be here all ze veek." OK, name a conservative comedian. Larry the Cable Guy? Post-9/11 Dennis Miller? Conservatives like P.J. O'Rourke or Larry Miller do occasionally do humor, and some even do it well. But given that most conservatives by their nature prefer anachronistic notions like earnestness and sincerity and faith to the moden comedy necessities of irony and sarcasm, most conservative attempts at comedy come out looking like this mindblowing masterwork of satirical genius:

[image removed. that was unnecessary.]

See, Michael Moore, Rob Reiner, and Rosie O'Donnell, who we all know are great influencers among the powerful leftist cabal, are also all FAT! Daaaaaaaaaaamn! I bet George Soros knows his way around a box of Entenmann's, too. Am I right?

7. Even conservatives will hate this show. Steve H of Hog On Ice says, brilliantly: "Mr. Ailes, I beg you...KILL THIS SHOW. Sometimes a late-term abortion is not a bad thing. Seriously, this baby poses a threat to the health of the mother."

Steve H also claims, dubiously, that there exists a whole wide world of hilarious conservative comedy, by which he means funny right-leaning bloggers. I'll tell you what: When Al Franken and gets a thrilling anti-terrorism action show on the air, then I'll believe in conservative TV comedy. In the meantime, the right-wingers who deal in cameras and scripts should stick to saving Los Angeles from Muslims and Russians with WMDs.

Comments

[Josh]

The name also rips off "This Hour Has 22 Minutes", a Canadian political satire show.

I can't believe I watched that clip. That's two minutes of my life I'l never have back.

[Jonathan Moore]

I really appreciate hearing from someone who understands liberal media and what's at stake. Without Fox News, this country would just become another cesspool of self-hate, America-hate, postmodernism and nihilism. If you really want to go attack conservative comedy, why don't you go to ourcountry.com and leave your comments there.

Go ahead and criticize the show, but only after it airs!

[seamus]

The problem with ourcountry.com isn't the comedy. The problem is the browser-destroying web design. It makes me hate America. Am I really supposed to be seeing nine videos at the same time?

"Half Hour" has aired -- on YouTube. And the verdict is obvious.

[MattyMatt]

You know, Aristotle said that comedy depicts awful humans, and tragedy represents noble humans -- so in order for a show to really be comedic, its subjects have to be flawed. I think their flaws make conservatives, rather than liberals, innately better-suited to be the target of jokes.

On the other hand, if you were going to make a half-hour news-tragedy show, liberals would be perfect stars.

[MattyMatt]

I've just been made aware of another thing that is terribly wrong with the show ... Joel Surnow's attempted facial hair:
http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Joel_Surnow

[David Drake]

Thanks for the mention! You obviously understand the comedy so well. It's like when Liberals name call at Conservative, you know - like Al Franken's book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot". It's funny because Al calls names at someone. I'm so pleased you grasp the comedic intent. Maybe I'm jumping to a conclustion there -- did Mommy have to explain it to you? I shouldn't discount that, should I.

Your blog is awfully boring. Too Wordy. Is all you can manage is the typing and words? Your brain can't wrap itself around mastering a photo-shop type software? That's too bad.

[David Drake]

The text minus my fantastic work with photo-shop really doesn't make any sense. You're a pretty petty and small individual, aren't you ?! Heh!

Thanks for the traffic!

[mediagirl19]

Here's better conservative comedy:

The America Show Episode 4, "Jesus & Mordy"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kkwRI47LeE

[Chris Yeh]

The best anti-Hollywood-liberal comedy on television is South Park. But they savage the hell out of the Bible-thumping conservatives as well.

[Simon the Barbarian]

The Fox Network is Jason from Friday the 13th.

What he finds funny is hatcheting apart teenagers and arranging shapes from their severed limbs. This isn't to say there aren't others out there in the world giggling at Jason's and Fox's clever witticisms; I'm just not one of them.