Idiot Box Savant: Politics = funny (not really)

By Andrew Kiraly

Ha ha ha! Whoa, did Congress pass the No Guffaw Left Behind Act while I was busy having nightmares about George Bush and Dick Cheney clinking skulls filled with goat blood in an unholy toast to celebrate Darth Nader's run for prez? Seems that way whenever I holster the Little Debbie Star Crunch and point the remote tubeward; these days everyone's got their funny li'l show--"biting!" "savagely funny!" coo the critics--about politics and current events. The cableverse is crowded with stuff like "The Daily Show" and "Tough Crowd"; hell, even MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" features the O-man tossing out smirky one-liners with so much pleasure you'd think he's putting a cigar out on his servant's forehead. Everyone's indulging his inner class clown. What's next? "Surgery Comedy Hour" with Dr. Sanjay Gupta?

Now CNBC has shouldered its way into the act with "Dennis Miller" (cable channel 35, Sun.-Fri. 9 p.m.) Is it news? Is it entertainment? Or is it hilaritorial polititainment celebrinalysis cheese food product?

Hell if I know anymore. Reality is so fucked it's hard to tell what's satire and what's straight, whether I'm being infotained or edupropriated. But this recent funnyfication of serious shit sure seems to mark the nadir of my very own asstarded Gen X's intellectual coming of age. Yeah, can you imagine a bigger mindfucking generational bummer than to finally start feeling like a responsible, informed member of this Kyoto-dissing, U.N.-scoffing, sports drink-chugging nation--watching Chris Matthews gather spittle-crust at his mouth-corners on "Hardball" and lip-syncing along with circus-barker John McLaughlin--and then the masters of reality tell you, oh, WHOA, Gen X motard, here are some more, ah, entertaining current events show with "edgy" graphics and gimmicks to better fit your kiddie-pool thoughtstyle. Maddening! Which is why I'm submitting my application to Tom Brokaw to get me grandfathered in to the Greatest Generation. Okay, so I didn't fight in World War II. But I can ration sugar like a motherfucker!

I wouldn't mind so much if Dennis Miller's show was, er, actually decent. However! Sad fact #1: It's only half decent. Sad fact #2: It's not neatly divided between decent and shitty, but is instead a decent/shitty mosaic, so you have to watch the whole thing and sorta mentally pan for the decent parts and assemble them all in your brain to feel as though it was worth sitting through those honest-to-gawd terrifying new Quizno's commercials (wha? did Al-Qaeda hijack a production studio in Burbank or something?).

First off, if you're hooked on stuff like the "Daily Show," "Dennis Miller" will disappoint; his jokes are limp, his insights bland and his legendary rants are about as spicy as dishwater. Bad sign #1: Yeah, I knew things weren't looking too good when he kicks off the show by reading jokes while a chimpanzee swings on a rope. Tsk tsk. A few weeks' worth of shows and he's already playing the Monkey Card. Bad sign #2: The early appearance of Dana Carvey in a show. Early Carvey Deployment Factor: That's like discovering a profusely bleeding, silver dollar-sized mole on your back the first day of swimsuit season. Bad sign #3: Miller says they're going to bring in a studio audience. Could be there be a more bald admission of lameness? See, as of now--sans a studio full of willing chortlers--when Miller makes one of those trenchant Point Park University rantlets and no one's on hand to laugh, people at home don't know what to do (well, I do; I take advantage of the peaceful cricket sounds to continue my own personal Diabetes Quest by quaffing a Henry Weinhard's root beer). But, see, with a studio audience stocked with easily entertained, heartily laughing mooks, the TV-watching population won't have to think for themselves and can rest assured--as they chuckle, possibly like me, between bites of Manwich--that they are watching Quality TV Programming. Because--listen!--there are people laughing! And there's a monkey in diapers! Tee hee! Naderbot, O Unholy Vote-Splitter, rouse this nation from its drunken sleep!