January 25, 2010
Saturday Comedy Roundup
"Not Sexy Asian. Math Asian"
Cenac knows post-racial.
We're buried in snow here, and no knows what to do. No salt, no plows, no nothing, so if you run out of cigarettes or coffee, you're kind of screwed. Unless of course you feel like taking your life into your hands and risking the freaked-out Southern drivers. That, the NBC reruns, and the crazy demands of two projects and three classes might be enough to drive me crazy. But there's a vacation on the horizon, and better yet, that warm, fuzzy "Daily Show" feeling to keep me warm.
Mostly, it was about the State of the Union. No, of course I didn't watch the actual speech, I waited for "TDS" to pick out the highlights so I wasn't cringing. And God bless the writers, who must have stayed up all night writing zingers. (Side note: it was actually kind of funny that the "Colbert" and "DS" writers came up with parallel jokes on the Republican address and Presidential "pre-buttal").
There was some good warmup stuff about the Republican speech, but the highlight was the theme and variation on "F*** you" (the central premise of Obama's speech, obviously). You actually heard those asterisks, by the way, because of course Comedy Central was bleeping its little heart out. But you know what? I think it was actually funnier that way. Anyway, with some really stellar delivery, Stewart took what was basically a silly Austin Powers joke construction (Think of Doctor Evil's "Shh!!!" or "Zip it!") and used it for satire, which of course had me clasping my hands in girlish delight. And hey, some kudos to the POTUS: Rachel Maddow was right about Obama's speech being "playfully feisty", and his calling out the entire Supreme Court (well, OK, the five out of nine) was pretty awesome.
I thought that was going to be a hard act to follow, but the following segment was also a slam-dunk. First the observation of how stupid punditry has gotten, then straight to Chris Matthews' dumb remark. The "one scotch away from being Ron Burgundy" was dead on, but Wyatt Cenac's response segment was fucking awesome. Sartre, deconstruction, and disquisition? Why not. Then a solid right snark-hook on the subject of being "post-racial." Cenac is so good at the slow burn, even Stewart was having trouble keeping a straight face during the Jewish jokes. The crowning glory was Cenac's response to Stewart's facts and figures: "I should close my eyes and pretend you're Asian. But not sexy Asian. Math Asian."
Yup, that's gonna have to be enough for this week. I mean sure, I think it's cool that Seth Macfarlane is going to host the WGA awards, and that Johan Hedberg made what the sports pundits are calling the "funniest save of the season". And sure, I'm also irritated that GQ thinks it's funny to take cheap shots at rom-coms via When In Rome -- really, pointing out the predictability of rom-coms is so easy, it's not even clever. But you know what? It's too damned cold, and I'm too damned tired. I'm gonna make some coffee, Irish it up, and watch Fast Times At Ridgemont High in honor of my upcoming trip.
