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Friday, May 29, 2009

Those damned hecklers

What's Mallard raving about today?

David Letterman, President Obama

Seriously? This is why Mallard is so upset? Because the rest of the world doesn't share his outrage over all these faux outrages?

I liked this better when I thought Mallard was hoping to be the Jim Cramer to David Letterman's Jon Stewart.

17 comments:

Mysterio said...

"What" the "heck" is up "with" all the "quotation" "marks" in today's "comic"?
(I mean, quotes around the word teleprompter? Really?

Factinista said...

Someone please enlighten me. Where did this obsession with Obama using teleprompters come from? He's far from the only politician to use them.

Michael Foley said...

A couple days ago I said Tinsley was upset at Letterman "for not making jokes about Obama's teleprompter or whatever", and felt guilty afterward for possibly creating a strawman argument. Thanks for proving once again that you cannot be underestimated, Bruce.

exanonymous said...

Letterman won't follow neocon humor. The reason?

There really isn't successful neocon humor show out there. Letterman has no desire to kill his ratings with talking points, jokes divorced from reality, and things his audience won't find funny.

NLC said...

Y'know, the longer this goes on the more I think I agree with the suggestion that someone made the other day.

That is, Tinsley thinks that by running these strips he can goad Letterman into having him on the show where his witty repartee will establish him a Big Time Media Star.

I mean, think about it: Tinsley career must be on the skids, right? Papers are dropping the strip --and not just because all papers are "downsizing" in the current economy. The "professional" quality of the strip is universally reviled. (Let's leave aside the issues of his personal life.)

Even Tinsley (as well as Kings Features) must understand that the only reason the strip is carried as much as it is is because there are so many lazy editors out there who can point to the presence of MF on their comics page as evidence of their sense of "balance" and "fair play".

Tinsley could really use this. And at worst, if Letterman falls for this, and such an appearance turns into the fiasco (for Tinsley) that it surely would, Tinsley can always play the "poor picked on Conservative martyr, attacked by the Left Wing Media[tm]".

(I'm trying to think of apt comparison to the Letterman/Harvey Pekar interaction; but 1] Pekar was great, 2] Pekar didn't really need the publicity, and, most importantly, 3] I don't want to soil Pekar's name by dragging it into this swamp.)

Mr. Fourdotellipse said...

Factinista said...

Someone please enlighten me. Where did this obsession with Obama using teleprompters come from? He's far from the only politician to use them.

Simple, "attack their strength." President Obama is a great orator, so attack him by implying he's only a tool of his teleprompter.

Speaking of obsession, how 'bout that reference to Acorn?

NLC said...

re: Teleprompters

Tinsley missed a great oppurtunity here:

A couple days ago MF made the "point" that BO's joke about "you all voted for me" at the Washington Press Corps Dinner proved left-wing bias in the media.

In the same speech BO did a small routine in which the telepromters rose to great fanfare and OB pretended that he was going to read the rest of his presentation from them.

So, obviously by the same logic this proves Tinsley's point, right?

Jazzbumpa said...

Wow. He's (and the right in general) got nuyhin'. Just, nuthin'

rewinn said...

Y'all make great points; Fillmore is providing a school on why reichwing humor is EPIC FAIL.

But my favorite aspect of today's "comic" is Tinkley's fantasy about Dave's reaction to hecklers:

"Yasshe, iffun *I* wash in dat crowd, I'duh heckle him I wud, and ahl he kun do ish just scowl behind dis faggy blu glashes yuhk-yhuk!"

I'm sure Dave will pay just as much attention as Obama did when told "I'll be keeping an eye on you"

Squid Vicious said...

Basically, Tinkley is pissed that Letterman, Leno, etc. had a very easy time poking fun at Pres. Bush's myriad gaffes. It was easy not just because they were numerous, but because they fell in a general pattern. I mean, beginning with his campaign in 1999, Bush was well known for his verbal fumbling, his malapropisms, and his geographic ignorance. Once these were established as baseline tics for the President, the comedians used these as the foundation for many jokes.

If Obama establishes a pattern of similar gaffes, I fully expect comedians to pick up on it. So far, however, Obama hasn't. The occasional teleprompter stumble or a single geographic mistake isn't enough to generate a recurring joke-line.

Rootbeer said...

"Tinsley thinks that by running these strips he can goad Letterman into having him on the show where his witty repartee will establish him a Big Time Media Star."

He might have done better to pick a week where media interest in late-night talk shows was NOT already so focused on Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien.

Or maybe he conceived this series of strips before the Tonight Show handover was scheduled... five years ago.

Kyle said...

Fact is the Right Wing collectively believes that the jokes at Bush's expense were because of political stripes and not because he was a genuinely a goof.

A good, non-Mallard example is a TV commercial for this lame local hate-radio jock out here in San Diego. It starts with that dumb GOP meme of "if you had a trillion ____ (in this case buckets of sand), it would fill the _______!" The talking head says "Let's hope the people in charge can count," and the next clip is that Obama "57 states" thing from last year. The radio jock then smirks smugly and says, "ooops!"

Only, that 57 states thing was debunked a freakin' year ago -- Obama did visit 57 areas that voted in the Primaries.

It's dumb (which was has been the right wing MO the last few years, but they seem to be insistent on Obama being hassled for the same things as Bush when they're two very different people. Rather than seek actual weaknesses that might have traction they're going for Bush's weaknesses.

Lagomorph Man said...

It's just painfully obvious that he can't tell the difference between what is obviously a slip of the tongue (57 states) and what is a fully-intended gaffe ("Terrorists, bring it on." Classy material, Mr. Bush. Right out of a pro-wrestling skit)

WV: exachbur; How Bruce tries to pronounce the name of King Arthur's sword after a dose of his "work juice."

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Gosh, yes, why won't Letterman use right-wing talking points to attack Obama? Oh, that's right: because the only people who would find that funny (and not "ha ha" funny--just "ha! Take THAT, libruls!" funny) would be idiot dead-enders like Tinsley.

There are certainly things that late-night talk show hosts COULD legitimately use to make fun of Obama, but since most of them involve his insufficiently repudiating the criminal depredations of his predecessor, I somehow think they're not what Tinzzhors has in mind.

CW in LA said...

The fixation on the Teleprompter may be because that really is something that differentiates Obama from his predecessor. After all, what good is a Teleprompter to an illiterate?

I'm being snarky, of course, but Bush's handlers were more partial to hidden wires, as in the debate with Kerry.

Anonymous said...

Ducky;
Because Letterman doesn't feel like it, and he has absolutely no obligations at all to do so. Any given talk / comedy show probably passes over hundreds of topics every day.*
If you don't care for his program, CHANGE THE CHANNEL. Solved.

Kyle is right: wittle ducky wants to stamp his feet until Letterman (successful) gives him validation.

*For example, a slip of the tongue that happened almost a year ago = not funny. The reason Bush's crap became daily fodder for these shows is because he was constantly doing them, all but every day, for 8 years.

Bill the Splut said...

Isn't "Making hi-larious snark about liberals!" Tin-Ear's job? Is he complaining --for DAYS ON END--about Letterman not doing his own heavy lifting? Does he also complain that Letterman isn't paying his drunk driving legal fees? Dude, if you're that upset about Telepromptergate, write something funny about it yourself! Oh, wait, that'd only be possible in the parallel universe were Mallard doesn't blow.

Word verification: REXTUBE, which is what Tin-Ear does to his TV with an empty Jim Beam bottle when Letterman comes on, before waking up on the floor the next afternoon, wiping the crust from his mouth and wondering how the scheming lie-berals were able to break into his house and smash it again.