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hcreight posted:OK this Postal Service TV show has to be an elaborate troll by the show OH GOD I GOOGLED IT, THIS THING IS REAL AND IN SEASON 3. It reminds me of a comic book where the superhero is some noticeably and somewhat severely disabled child, and he's got supernatural Differently Able Powers, and so his disabilities are so supernaturally super-charged that they become his greatest assets. We're talking some kid who is legally deaf and in a wheelchair who has deaf wheelchair powers, and they made a comic about him so that other little kids who are severely disabled can have a hero... except that those kids did have heroes already, like Superbat and Wonderflash and the X Fantastic and two different Captain Marvels. And because of a hard-to-believe case of the not-self-aware-sies, the comic comes off as worse than lame. It's unintentionally insulting to those who it's supposed to inspire. "... and the actors look at me, and the rest of our inspectors here, just as star-struck...." That could be true, if the inspectors were completely unimpressed by the actors. Which, let's face it, they really should be.
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Nov 6, 2017 07:32
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hcreight posted:OK this Postal Service TV show has to be an elaborate troll by the show OH GOD I GOOGLED IT, THIS THING IS REAL AND IN SEASON 3. Seriously, I wasn't quite paying attention at the beginning and for half the segment I was convinced it was just a clip made by Oliver like Crime Scene Idiot and wondered what point he was trying to make with it.
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Nov 6, 2017 10:43
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hcreight posted:OK this Postal Service TV show has to be an elaborate troll by the show OH GOD I GOOGLED IT, THIS THING IS REAL AND IN SEASON 3. I used to watch NCIS and the clips of that show made it seem like they hired an intern from NCIS to run it, right down to the semi-serious chip on the shoulder "you guys solve crimes?" joke.
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Nov 6, 2017 14:50
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Carlos Bernard directed four episodes. 
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Nov 6, 2017 15:31
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There are a LOT of wealthy and powerful people who use the whole "I'm an idiot, I can't remember crucial elements of the crimes I did!" when the indictments or journalists come around. And despite knowing how common the tactic is, I keep slipping towards it, because it's such fun to believe, especially when you hate them so much. Really, the fact that there's so many seemingly stupid mistakes that they get caught on is more just damning evidence of how far gone and corrupt the whole system is, and how comfortable all this scum is in doing what they do. Essentially it's these businessmen walking into the bedroom of America and masturbating because they're pretty certain nobody will call them on it. All the news people having fun with their lovely costumes on air is a symptom of the fact that journalism is dying I guess.
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Nov 6, 2017 17:40
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Local TV news never really counted as journalism.
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Nov 6, 2017 18:08
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SlothfulCobra posted:All the news people having fun with their lovely costumes on air is a symptom of the fact that journalism is dying I guess. Or that they're all human and happy for any excuse to dress up, act goofy and generally enliven a rote activity like work.
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Nov 6, 2017 18:13
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No he's roght journalism is a joke and entertainment and it's not news
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Nov 6, 2017 18:31
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IRQ posted:Local TV news never really counted as journalism. Yeah, I don't buy that. Local TV news, at least in St. Louis, have decent enough investigative reporters who have uncovered some interesting things about local government corruption. None of it makes the national news because nobody more than a hundred miles away from here cares about towing scandals or illegal seizure of World Series tickets, but they do investigate, and they do report on it. The problem is that they have to show up on TV to report about it, and on TV, you're playing more than just the journalist game. There are appearances to consider, and time is suddenly a huge factor. And, yes, a decent portion of a channel's newscast is going to be infotational fluff. It kind-of has to be. And you'll find this in every newspaper throughout history, too... it's just much easier to skip over if you're not interested. Don't want to read a column about lonely puppies? Then don't. Don't want to watch a news segment about the same things? Well, now you have to change the channel, and the other channels have news on and it's probably their infotational fluff segment as well, or a channel where 3/4ths of a show has already aired and you're jumping in toward the end... meh, hey look, puppy! A hilarious side-effect is anchors and weatherfolk in costume. Oh, it's not funny on purpose. But it is funny. There is something quintessentially American about watching a report about a horrific shooting in which 10 children were slaughtered in front of their parents who were also slaughtered when that report is delivered by the serious voice of a 50-year-old anchorman who is dressed like a female elf.
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Nov 6, 2017 18:46
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The Postal Service show really is something else, drat. Surprised they didn't mention the Foxconn factory, it was a pretty big deal recently and a could've made for a good case study.
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Nov 6, 2017 20:09
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IRQ posted:Local TV news never really counted as journalism. The importance of local news outlets was the subject of one of LWT's best segments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq2_wSsDwkQ Local TV news was just allowed to devolve so long ago that we think that garbage is all we've ever had.
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Nov 6, 2017 20:14
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God Hole posted:The importance of local news outlets was the subject of one of LWT's best segments Local TV stations are trash.
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Nov 6, 2017 20:54
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Hahaha that ending.
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Nov 13, 2017 15:49
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I don't disagree with Oliver's overall take on Trump and Fox News' tactics. If I had to nitpick though, public opinion of the mainstream press has eroded a lot in the past few decades, and Trump is capitalizing on their systemic problems that were always there and haven't corrected. (I guess I'm doing a whataboutism about the media...) Longtime Daily Show viewers know CNN was always terrible, and it sucks that Trump co-opted it as The Thing To Hate. Like, the appeal of whataboutism goes beyond the waters being muddied. Whataboutism works because of how entrenched the culture war fault lines are. Facts don't hurt, but won't save us from Trumpism. Maybe it's just because I'm 30, and I'm nostalgic for the old internet, but I still remember a time when trolling wasn't mostly associated with the nihilistic Right. Trolling is appealing because people want to think their ideological opponent as the evil establishment, and the opposition to Trump hasn't successfully branded the president with the failed status quo. Like, mainstream liberalism now has this weird "let's restore the former status quo" vibe that is off-putting. I don't expect John Oliver to pitch an alternative, because that's beyond the scope of him and his show. I think an unpopular establishment press and social media dumping mud into the pond are part of How Things Are now. You can't ask for the culture war fault lines to go away, but you can try to draw it in the widest net possible, without giving an inch to the shitlords and the super rich. Just spitballing here. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Nov 14, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 17:05
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I enjoyed the summary of all the bits he's done this season, but I'm disappointed that there wasn't a real in-depth story tonight other than Trump. I hope that those cowboy commercials catch some viewers' attention even if their intended target is probably too dense to get the hint.Echo Chamber posted:If I had to nitpick though, public opinion of the mainstream press has eroded a lot in the past few decades, and Trump is capitalizing on their systemic problems that were always there and haven't corrected. (I guess I'm doing a whataboutism about the media...) Longtime Daily Show viewers know CNN was always terrible, and it sucks that Trump co-opted it as The Thing To Hate. Well Fox was a large part of that, although not the only reason. They've been running with their own line about distrusting the "mainstream media" for a while. One of the reasons CNN wound up in a bad place was because MSNBC took a bit of a hint from Fox to start shifting in its own direction politically, and CNN resolutely decided to stay "in the middle," a place that has started to exist less and less, especially as some people have flocked to complete lies to reinforce their radical political beliefs. It says a lot that the pissfuck decided to make the one that tried to the point of absurdism to stay "in the middle" his personal enemy instead of MSNBC. You're not wrong that there's been a lust for a "return to normalcy" lately, and part of that is the fact that the last few steps of this journey we've been on have been so extreme and radical that it's easy to forget that we've been in on a downward slope for decades, and many things can be traced back to the 90s or 80s, if not earlier. The rising wage gap, the ever-decreasing taxes on the wealthy, the lowering standards for workers' rights, the unregulated financial industry that will inevitably kill us all with another crash, the increasing problems caused by the lack of government welfare in fields that run wild with capitalist privateering, the weakening minority rights and rise of bigoted groups that don't merely restrict themselves to threatening violence with goofy hoods on their heads, but actually get politically active. That's been happening for a while, but the severity of everything that's happened in the last two years alone make 2014 seem like some kind of halcyon days. The other part of that is the fact that a lot of people trying to put together this anti-Trump strategy are paranoid that many of the people they want to rally support from are on the other side of the aisle, and they don't want to risk alienating people before they come back to power, so they're trying to stick close to the whole rightward-shift strategy that served the democrats so well during 2016. I guess many of them still wear the scars from the rise of the tea party, and don't want to ever risk that again at any cost.
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Nov 14, 2017 01:03
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SlothfulCobra posted:The other part of that is the fact that a lot of people trying to put together this anti-Trump strategy are paranoid that many of the people they want to rally support from are on the other side of the aisle, and they don't want to risk alienating people before they come back to power, so they're trying to stick close to the whole rightward-shift strategy that served the democrats so well during 2016. I guess many of them still wear the scars from the rise of the tea party, and don't want to ever risk that again at any cost. The saddest part of the American two party system is how it forces this kind of political strategizing, rather than people just campaigning on what they actually believe and letting the chips fall where they may.
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Nov 14, 2017 01:09
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SlothfulCobra posted:I enjoyed the summary of all the bits he's done this season, but I'm disappointed that there wasn't a real in-depth story tonight other than Trump. I hope that those cowboy commercials catch some viewers' attention even if their intended target is probably too dense to get the hint. Though, I think this episode did a good job of making the point that it's not just that he's dense. I mean, he is, but mostly it's a toxic mix of ego and cognitive dissonance that's the issue. He's incompetent. But clearly he isn't *actually* because he's brilliant and smart and people love him...so, this must be fake news. It's not that he won't understand these ads, he'll contextualize them as sour grapes from spiteful political enemies. It's just the liberal media being mean to him. The medium will overpower the message.
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Nov 14, 2017 02:25
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What happened with the trial against that coal dude?
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Nov 14, 2017 03:08
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drat did he cut the season short this early last year?
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Nov 14, 2017 03:41
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They’re always short, I wish they weren’t.
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Nov 14, 2017 03:42
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It might also have something to do with the Night of Too Many Stars event coming up. Oliver and Stewart are heavily involved in that, and I can't imagine it's an easy event to get done.
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Nov 14, 2017 03:46
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Milo and POTUS posted:drat did he cut the season short this early last year? Yeah, last year ended the same weekend and had the same number of episodes.
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Nov 14, 2017 05:19
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BIG HEADLINE posted:It might also have something to do with the Night of Too Many Stars event coming up. Oliver and Stewart are heavily involved in that, and I can't imagine it's an easy event to get done. Now try to imagine how hard it is when a healthy amount of your guests and presenters turn out to be facing sexual assault allegations during your preparations. /edit: After writing that sentence, I thought about it a little more, and as soul crushing as it is, I can't help but think that people are now sitting in the planning stage and either thinking about, or straight up vetting the pivotal participants of their huge media events these days. Duzzy Funlop fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Nov 14, 2017 |
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Nov 14, 2017 05:47
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https://twitter.com/yashar/status/937872292129931265?s=17 #feminism 
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Dec 5, 2017 04:02
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Based purely on photo selected I wonder which way the slant is (Oliver comes off looking antagonistic, though Hoffman I think plays the “it’s not what happened” card which is universally wrong)
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Dec 5, 2017 15:22
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Oliver comes off antagonistic but in the right way. He forces the conversation to acknowledge that Hoffman's apology (and most celebrity apologies) is bullshit.
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Dec 5, 2017 16:28
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Oliver really does love his job.
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Dec 5, 2017 18:29
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:I think he means in the "Trust, support and love the troops, the police and the country. But I need my guns in case any one of them starts gunning for me." Gold!
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Dec 8, 2017 05:09
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Wish we had the John Oliver show to collect for us some choice clips from the Alabama Senate election and commentate them. Is anyone else doing that? Other equally funny shows / podcasts with a similar style of finding and showing ridiculous clips?
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Dec 13, 2017 08:33
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Dumb Lowtax posted:Wish we had the John Oliver show to collect for us some choice clips from the Alabama Senate election and commentate them. Is anyone else doing that? Other equally funny shows / podcasts with a similar style of finding and showing ridiculous clips? The Daily Show, Colbert, Full Frontal?
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Dec 13, 2017 14:48
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IRQ posted:Full Frontal? They said "funny shows".
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Dec 13, 2017 15:43
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Is comedy really such a boys club that nobody watches Samantha Bee, or is she just too dry for American audiences? I thought she was funny, but she’s slanting to this angry-alt left thing where she’s just raging 24/7 and I don’t understand if she has a style/angle or if she just got broken by our society.
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Dec 13, 2017 15:52
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I'm enjoying Nightly Show alum Robin Thede's show on BET. It's kind of like Full Frontal, but so far there's not much left-punching. Also it's not white as heck.
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Dec 13, 2017 15:58
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Bust Rodd posted:Is comedy really such a boys club that nobody watches Samantha Bee, or is she just too dry for American audiences? I thought she was funny, but she’s slanting to this angry-alt left thing where she’s just raging 24/7 and I don’t understand if she has a style/angle or if she just got broken by our society. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/323385-samantha-bee-is-late-night-tvs-leading-hypocrite-on-racial-diversity
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Dec 13, 2017 16:18
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biracial bear for uncut posted:They said "funny shows". Honestly everyone is telling the same Trump jokes every week so if you don't find them funny I guess you won't find Full Frontal funny, but I struggle to see how you'd find any late night political comedy show funny in that case.
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Dec 13, 2017 16:27
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Samantha Bee is phenomenal and the only good Daily Show spinoff besides this
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Dec 13, 2017 16:29
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Filling out the rest of the TDS family, there's Jordan Klepper's show. It's.... okay? I watch it out of force of habit. I can't flat out recommend it, but it's not as bad as I was expecting. It's obviously a Colbert Report knockoff, but Jordan also has a solid team of correspondents who also do decent field pieces. It's also frustrating. Jon Stewart was able give something that was a little bit more than just a milquetoast liberal perspective, which is what I'm looking for. But I feel like that little more is still largely missing from Bee, Noah, Klepper, and Late Show Colbert. Even though Colbert is still quite good. I'll just say it. It's hard for me to watch these shows without the whole Bernie vs. Hillary schism hovering over my mind. Stewart was comfortable criticizing Democrats. But it's more difficult to do now in light of the the rift between liberals and the left, and I think a lot of television-oriented comedians naturally have a more anti-populist bent to them. Sam Bee seems to be the one most comfortable with posturing herself the standard bearer of metropolitan liberalism, which is why it's probably the hardest show of all of these for me to watch. It's the one show I dropped from the TDS family. I know plenty on the Left (especially here on SA) dislike John Oliver because REASONS, but I appreciate how he consistently explains all the ways corporations have hosed us all. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 16:57
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I don't know if I'd really put Jordan Klepper on the same level as the other Daily Show correspondents. He came in to the show a lot later, and I actually stopped watching the show a little while after, partially because most of the people I liked on the show were long gone. I never liked him and his tall hair or the bits he did. What's interesting to remember about the daily show is that it wasn't originally intended to be political, even though it became such over time, and the transition was incredibly obvious in retrospect. It was more intended to just make fun of the news and showcase goofy news stories. These days, there's a lot of comedy shows that wade into the quagmire of the political sphere, but most of them seem to fall into the same trap as the news cycle by only following the same few big stories all at the same time so they're all making the same jokes.
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Dec 13, 2017 18:01
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Reflection of the times. If we actually had a functioning government that had civil discourse and compromise while not being naked corrupt shills for corporate interests, the subject matter on these shows would change. You simply can't have a satire based show right now and not have it be political based since there's no divide in the news. When you have POTUS offering his "thoughts" over Twitter about the most mundane happenings, it's impossible to avoid politics in pretty much every subject.
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Dec 13, 2017 18:13
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Not sure if it was articulated in this thread or another, but someone said that it's because Stewart gradually made The Daily Show more politically-conscious from its humble beginnings as a Weekend Update knockoff that helped contribute to the goodwill he's enjoyed from the audience. A lot of his more disagreeable viewpoints were forgiven because of this. I thought Stewart was being sincere about how he understood his own program as a comedy show, not a news show, despite how some of his fans and frenemies hated how he supposedly wanted it both ways. Noah and Bee inherited a satirical landscape that presumed its importance. The heirs' attempts at self-deprecation in their polished programs comes off as a bit more insincere. Perhaps this impression is unfair. As for the news cycle, it's because Oliver still gets to buck the day-to-day Trump stuff, in his main stories at least, that makes his program a bit more refreshing. Obviously, he's still unambiguously preachy, but his frequent pivots away from only talking about Trump, and his apparent editorial freedom makes his show seem less cynically focus-grouped in the age of Trumpism and "the Resistance". Klepper's chance to do his own show kind of fell on his lap. I don't mean this as a way to bash him. Comedy Central needed an 11:30 show, and was conscious of all the talent they lost from so many other TDS cast members leaving the network for greener pastures. His time at TDS seemed shorter than Colbert, Oliver, Bee, Wilmore, Williams; but I still see him as part of "the family". In many ways, I'm still a huge fan of Jon, and a lot of personal goodwill (perhaps over-deserved) I have for him rubs onto the people he hired or "saw something in".
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Dec 13, 2017 18:49
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