Elon Musk on Real Time with Bill Maher (VIDEO)

A great interview. The more I see Elon unfiltered the more I love the guy. He doesn't get ruffled.

Woody Harrelson's Opening on Saturday Night Live (VIDEO)

I saw articles saying his opening monologue was controversial --- it spread "anti-vaccine" conspiracies. 

So much bullshit. The guy's a genius. Hilarious. 

WATCH:

NFL Meeting Week 15 with Annie Agar

She's very good.

NFL meeting week 15 pic.twitter.com/2Rk3kZcLPs

— Annie Agar (@AnnieAgar) December 20, 2022

Dave Chappelle's Opening Bit on Saturday Night Live (VIDEO)

I watched it. Pure genius, and funny as hell. Un-PC, though. Some folks got their skivvies twisted. 

At Vanity Fair, "Live From New York: Dave Chappelle Turns SNL Into Chappelle's Show — The controversial comedian opened his third hosting turn with a passionate 15-minute monologue touching on Kanye and Trump."

 

Bill Maher: 'Hey Washington Post, Democracy Dies in Dumbness' (VIDEO)

He's funny. 

From last night:

Bill Maher: 'We Will All Be Gay in 2054' (VIDEO)

Bill Maher at his finest. 

Donna Brazile, one of Friday's guests, was not pleased. Nor was Glaad, for that matter. 

WATCH:

Trevor Noah at the White House Correspondents' Dinner (VIDEO)

He's good. Very funny and ripped everyone with no fear or favor.

Really, he's so good maybe I'll watch his show now, on Comedy Channel. Gotta be better than Stephen Colbert. Right?

From last night:

Washington's 'Forever Flu' Fleeced Americans (VIDEO)

I don't say this kind of thing often, but this man is fucking brilliant. 

Bill Maher last night on "Real Time":

Jonathan Pie: How Putin Weaponized London's Greed (VIDEO)

Previously hilarious Jonathan Pie, "Boris Johnson, Under Fire, Apologizes for Pandemic Party (VIDEO)." 

And here he comes again:

For the New York Times: 

The Problem With Jon Stewart

I cant't block quote this one. You gotta read the whole thing.

From Andrew Sullivan, at the Weekly Dish, "How painfully, cringingly super-woke must a comedian get to stay relevant?"

No April Fool's Joke

Linking Neo-Neocon, Ed Driscoll writes, "Neo’s post is strictly in the spirit of April Fools. But this tweet by Rob Reiner is apparently not satirical, given his far left world view: Rob Reiner tweeting rave reviews of Biden’s presidency doesn’t appear to be an April Fools joke."

Backlash Against Dave Chappelle's 'The Closer' (VIDEO)

If you've watched Chappelle's latest and last comedy special on Netflix, you might be flummoxed by all the hullabaloo. Then again, if you're up on despicable cancel culture, maybe not. 

One of many hilarious moments is when he told his audience that he was "uncancelable." He tells all the media scolds and woke Twitter idiots to fuck off. It's boss, heh.

Leftist won't let go, though Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has refused to cave. Maybe he still will, but I doubt it. Netflix has the power, not the ghoulish woke mob. Chappelle's show received sky-high viewer ratings on Dirty Rotten Tomatoes. Sarandos says the show's too popular to cancel. 

Anyway, just watch it for yourself. The cancel mobs make a lot of noise and they are very successful, but they can't bring down everyone, especially the biggest stars in the industry. 

The latest at NYT, "Netflix Loses Its Glow as Critics Target Chappelle Special":

It was looking like a great year for Netflix. It surpassed 200 million subscribers, won 44 Emmys and gave the world “Squid Game,” a South Korean series that became a sensation.

That’s all changed. Internally, the tech company that revolutionized Hollywood is now in an uproar as employees challenge the executives responsible for its success and accuse the streaming service of facilitating the spread of hate speech and perhaps inciting violence.

At the center of the unrest is “The Closer,” the much-anticipated special from the Emmy-winning comedian Dave Chappelle, which debuted on Oct. 5 and was the fourth-most-watched program on Netflix in the United States on Thursday. In the show, Mr. Chappelle comments mockingly on transgender people and aligns himself with the author J.K. Rowling as “Team TERF,” an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist, a term used for a group of people who argue that a transgender woman’s biological sex determines her gender and can’t be changed.

“The Closer” has thrust Netflix into difficult cultural debates, generating the kind of critical news coverage that usually attends Facebook and Google.

Several organizations, including GLAAD, the organization that monitors the news media and entertainment companies for bias against the L.G.B.T.Q. community, have criticized the special as transphobic. Some on Netflix’s staff have argued that it could incite harm against trans people. This week, the company briefly suspended three employees who attended a virtual meeting of executives without permission, and a contingent of workers has planned a walkout for next week.

A discussion this week on an internal Netflix message board between Reed Hastings, a co-chief executive, and company employees suggested that the two sides remained far apart on the issue of Mr. Chappelle’s special. A transcript of the wide-ranging online chat, in which Mr. Hastings expressed his views on free speech and argued firmly against the comedian’s detractors, was obtained by The New York Times.

One employee questioned whether Netflix was “making the wrong historical choice around hate speech.” In reply, Mr. Hastings wrote: “To your macro question on being on the right side of history, we will always continue to reflect on the tensions between freedom and safety. I do believe that our commitment to artistic expression and pleasing our members is the right long term choice for Netflix, and that we are on the right side, but only time will tell.”

He also said Mr. Chappelle was very popular with Netflix subscribers, citing the “stickiness” of “The Closer” and noting how well it had scored on the entertainment ratings website Rotten Tomatoes. “The core strategy,” Mr. Hastings wrote, “is to please our members.”

Replying to an employee who argued that Mr. Chappelle’s words were harmful, Mr. Hastings wrote: “In stand-up comedy, comedians say lots of outrageous things for effect. Some people like the art form, or at least particular comedians, and others do not.”

When another employee expressed an opinion that Mr. Chappelle had a history of homophobia and bigotry, Mr. Hastings said he disagreed, and would welcome the comedian back to Netflix.

“We disagree with your characterization and we’ll continue to work with Dave Chappelle in the future,” he said. “We see him as a unique voice, but can understand if you or others never want to watch his show.”

He added, “We do not see Dave Chappelle as harmful, or in need of any offset, which we obviously and respectfully disagree on.”

In a note to employees this week, Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s other co-chief executive, expressed his unwavering support for Mr. Chappelle and struck back at the argument that the comic’s statements could lead to violence...

More.

 

Jim Gaffigan, Donald Trump, and the Death of Laughter

At WSJ, "A family-friendly comedian unleashes an obscene rant against the president—and insults his own fans":

During the final night of the Republican National Convention last week, Mr. Gaffigan delivered a profane Twitter rant against President Trump: “I dont give a f— if anyone thinks this is virtue signaling or whatever. We need to wake up. We need to call trump the con man and thief that he is.”

There was more. Along these lines. You could look it up.

The sheer partisan rancor surely shocked many of Mr. Gaffigan’s fans. Yet the foul language was the real surprise—and, to some, the disappointment. Mr. Gaffigan’s success was built in part on his family-friendly reputation. He works clean—unlike most of his peers, he doesn’t swear during his act. More, he and his wife, Jeannie, have five children. Their willingness to identify publicly as faithful Catholics makes them a rarity in the entertainment business. In 2015 he was invited to “open” for Pope Francis during the pontiff’s visit to Philadelphia. Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K. don’t get those gigs...

RTWT.

Brad Pitt is the Man

I love this guy.

The skit's not that funny, actually, but the context is. Dr. Fauci wanted Pitt to impersonate him on 'SNL' and got his wish.

Fauci's came under intense fire from conspiracy-minded bottom-dwellers, and a while back he got a majority security upgrade, including armed federal marshals taking posts outside his home. 

At HuffPo:

The coronavirus task force doctor critiqued the Oscar-winning actor's performance on "Saturday Night Live." https://t.co/qwKnKqJB6e

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) April 28, 2020

And 'SNL':

And now, a message from Dr. Anthony Fauci. #SNLAtHome pic.twitter.com/LYemNAWaAT

— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) April 26, 2020

Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood Gentrification (VIDEO)

I don't watch SNL anymore, but you gotta get a kick out of Eddie Murphy.

At LAT, "Eddie Murphy returns to ‘Saturday Night Live’ with Buckwheat, Mr. Robinson and Gumby in tow."

The Joke Police Are Looking to Strip Dave Chappelle of His Speech Rights

I thought I blogged on his earlier, but I guess not.

Have you watched the new Dave Chappelle special on Netflix? It's da bomb!

See Cold Fury, "Sticks and Stones."

Did I just watch Dave Chappelle save America from itself in 65 minutes on Netflix? pic.twitter.com/FCXgk2j4hX

— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) August 29, 2019

'Laughter and enjoyment are out, emotional support are in, as Netflix's latest comedy special makes clear...'

From Scott Beauchamp, at AmCon, "Social Justice Warriors Aren't Funny":

What happens when you mix comedy with SJW progressivism? Whatever it is, it isn't comedy anymore: https://t.co/vWAJpahjO2

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) October 16, 2018

“Laughs are cheap. I’m going for gasps.” – Mac in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

There’s an older episode of The Green Room with Paul Provenza when the late Patrice O’Neal, arguably one of the best stand-up comics in recent history, gets serious for a moment, saying: “I love being able to say anything I want. I had to learn how to stop caring about people not laughing. Because the idea of comedy, really, is not everybody should be laughing. It should be about 50 people laughing and 50 people horrified. There should be people who get it and people who don’t get it.”

O’Neal gets right to the chaotic, trickster heart of comedy with that statement. Comedy at its best balances humor against shock–not necessarily vulgarity, mind you, but a sort of unsettling surprise. It’s a topsy-turvy glimpse at an uncanny, upside-down world, which, if the joke lands, provides a bulwark against torpor and complacency. Great comedy inhabits the absurdity of the world. It makes itself into a vantage point from which everything seems delightfully ridiculous, including (often especially) the comedians themselves. We wouldn’t need comedy in a world that wasn’t absurd. Perhaps that’s why Dante only included humor in his Inferno. There is no absurdity in paradise.

Unfortunately, Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, a comedy special recently released on Netflix, only embraces the non-laughter half of O’Neal’s dictum. It’s the very epitome of self-serious, brittle, didactic, SJW “comedy.” It’s not funny. And worse, it’s not meant to be. Gadsby, a queer Australian comedian, uses her “stand-up special” as a way to destroy the very medium she pretends to be professionally engaged in. Her basic argument is that, since comedy is by its very nature self-deprecating (true), people who define themselves as members of an oppressed minority shouldn’t engage in comedy because they’re only participating in the violence already being done to them by society at large.

As Soraya Roberts writes in The Baffler, “[Gadsby’s] performance is not comedy, in fact, but a rejection of comedy­–a medium she boils down to half-truths made up of tension (the set-up) and relief (the punchline), as opposed to the whole truth of storytelling’s beginning, middle and end.” It’s interesting to note here how Gadsby defines comedy down to a vapidly narrow set of very specific and au courant therapeutic concerns. “Laughter is not our medicine,” she actually says at one point in the show. It’s the same predictable posturing we’ve come to expect from mediocre talent riding the wave of SJW self-seriousness, a sort of emotivist mad libs. “Punchlines need trauma because punchlines need tension,” Gadsby harangues the audience. “I will not allow my story to be destroyed.”

The flaws of this sort of SJW anti-comedy are obvious. There’s no shock, no surprise, no wild current of absurd energy charging the room with tension. And so it’s a stretch to even call it comedy in the broadest sense. It’s more like a cross between a TED Talk and a gnostic sermon. But maybe more importantly, if Gadsby’s ideology is taken to its logical extreme, all comedy is verboten, because it would mean either that marginalized people are making fun of themselves (out) or that only non-marginalized people have “access” to “comedic spaces” (definitely out). And so the end game of this specious logic brought to the stage is the self-defeating conclusion that minorities simply don’t do comedy...

RTWT.

Allie Beth Stuckey Will Not Apologize for Hilarious Satirical Interview with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Allie Beth Stuckey's Satirical Interview with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Gets Over One Million Views on Facebook -- and Leftists Are Furious!"

Here she is:

No, @ConservMillen will not apologize to the liberal mob just because she made a joke.

Nor should she. We can't let the #FauxOutrage from the LEFT to become weaponized.

Watch Allie at CRTV:https://t.co/f6Lmpu9LhY pic.twitter.com/N4rueRFBow

— CRTV (@CRTV) July 25, 2018

Allie Beth Stuckey's Satirical Interview with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Gets Over One Million Views on Facebook -- and Leftists Are Furious!

This is really just too precious.

On Twitter:

Manipulated video to create entirely fake interview presented as real by verified account here and on Facebook where it has over 1.1 million views in less than 24 hours. https://t.co/P6E5LfQi3K

— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) July 24, 2018

This faked interview of @Ocasio2018 by @CRTV has nearly 1 million views on Facebook. In less than 24 hours.

Interview didn't happen. It takes clips from @MargaretHoover's show and edits in faux questions.

Not labeled satire (other than a 😉 emoji).https://t.co/ipUPsOoyLH

— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) July 24, 2018

NO WAY! Linda Sarsour, journos drop BOMBSHELL about Allie Beth Stuckey's 'interview' with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez https://t.co/gHRwIFBuWz

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 24, 2018

'Girl, SIT DOWN'! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's take on Allie Beth Stuckey's 'interview' is just TOO MUCH https://t.co/GygntMmdOt

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 24, 2018

Republicans are so scared of me that they made up some fake democratic socialist country called “Venezuela” and pretended people are starving and dying out there.

We will flip the seats red! pic.twitter.com/C2p6Bm7508

— Matt’s Idea Shop (@MattsIdeaShop) July 24, 2018

'Roseanne' Renewed for Second Season

Leftists have lost it over the "Roseanne" reboot.

NYT's Roxanne Gay can't stand the show's success, and especially the show's "normalization" of President Trump.

So hilarious. Also discussed at Fox & Friends below:

I wrote about the Roseanne reboot for the @nytimes. https://t.co/Oq1lhBoMcN

— roxane gay (@rgay) March 29, 2018