Conservatives should go back to comedy drawing board

By Sam Fran Scavuzzo
Collegian Editor
March 21, 2007

I’ve had enough with conservatives.

In the spirit of American tradition, nonpartisan interests should play an important role in American politics. Many things should be equitable, fair and open to all. What gets my goat are when time and energy is spent disproving and questioning the validity of objects and institutions.

Namely, I hate when conservatives feel the need to create alternatives to things that aren’t funny or interesting.

Have you seen The Half Hour News Hour yet? No? Neither has a majority of the nation. This satirical conservative spoof on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report is anything but funny. What network is showing this affront to comedy? Why, the ever bi-partisan FOX News, of course.

I’ll give FOX News credit, though; they have an impeccable background with comedy. I mean, this is the network that trots Bill O’Reilly out every night and expects people to take his “No Spin Zone” seriously. That, my friends, is comedy.

Their latest foray into the comedy world comes up a little short.

First, the show, unlike Comedy Central’s fearsome twosome, is run weekly – I guess conservatives can’t make Hillary Clinton jokes nightly. Also, in the vein of other hack comedies, The Half Hour News Hour has an obvious laugh track. Why else would books entitled Harry Potter and the Alternative Life-Style and The Lion, the Witch and the Budget Deficit get an uproarious guffaw?

However, I don’t think it’s not funny because it’s conservative. I think it’s not funny because it’s not funny. My liberal bias doesn’t affect my funny bone, as I feel “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live is pretty terrible nowadays, too. And that’s just as liberal as taxes and food for the poor.

Poor jokes, awkward camera cuts (which scream of heavy editing) and scary celebrity cameos doom this show. The pilot features Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as the respective president and vice president in 2008. The only thing scarier than that scenario is Coulter’s acting ability.

Even the conservative press is critical of The Half Hour News Hour. Web site Right Wing News calls it “the least edgy thing since Leave it to Beaver.” Maybe FOX should have listened to that show title and left comedy to the Beav, too.

Speaking of Coulter, perhaps you missed her own stand-up comedy routine a few weeks back at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). On March 2 at CPAC, Coulter said: “I was going to talk about the other Democratic candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘f----t.’”

Man, I love jokes that label married men homosexuals; I love bigoted slurs even more.

Conservatives aren’t just throwing their unwanted hat into the comedy ring. No, now a totally unbiased Conservapedia exists for all those souls who want to look up facts about Legends of the Hidden Temple without having to vote Democrat.

I thought Wikipedia was written and edited by the people. From reading the Conservapedia entry entitled “Examples of Bias in Wikipedia,” I was truly enlightened by this laundry list of complaints against Wikipedia.

Number one on the list questioned Wikipedia’s dating method: “Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia is Christian-friendly and exposes the CE deception.” They also oppose continuity as “CE” has periods in it the first time and clearly lacks them in the second reference.

Damn that liberal Wikipedia and its insistence on using modern science and history’s system of dates.

Conservapedia must like something about Wikipedia, as it steals its page design and set-up, much like stealing the idea for a satirical political news show.

Despite an obvious bias, Conservapedia simply doesn’t have as much information as Wikipedia. I looked up “God,” thinking Conservapedia would have a lot to say about the Almighty. What I found was a short entry consisting of only 146 words and two citations. Wikipedia’s entry on the big G is a lengthy one of 4,146 words (and pictures), which also features end notes, external links and references.

The “God” entry is not an anomaly.

So if you want war, no change, poor encyclopedia definitions and unfunny jokes, go conservative. If you want a good rib tickler and maybe a sex scandal, you know where to find us.

scavuzzos1@lasalle.edu