Count to Ten and Improve Your Comedy-Writing Skills

May 3rd, 2017

Colbert’s Talent Evaporates in Plume of Rage

How about that Stephen Colbert?

If you are blessedly ignorant of the current Colbert fracas, let me mess up your day by bringing you up to speed.

This week, Donald Trump got upset with CBS journalist (Is “CBS journalist” an oxymoron?) John Dickerson. During an interview, Dickerson asked Trump about his use of the terms “sick” and “bad” to describe former President (“Former”! YES!) Barack Obama. Trump refused to expound, telling Dickerson, “You can take it any way you want it.” Dickerson persisted, to the point of badgering, and Trump ended the interview and sat down.

Dickerson was somewhat disrespectful and a little rude. Trump was thin-skinned and impatient.

Colbert entered the picture later, during his own CBS show. I don’t know anything about John Dickerson, but Colbert seems to be intimately acquainted with the man’s work and character, because he said, “Donald Trump, John Dickerson is a fair-minded journalist and one of the most competent people who will ever walk into your office, and you treat him like that?”

Maybe Colbert knows something about John Dickerson which I do not. That would not be saying a lot, since I didn’t know who John Dickerson was until this week. Still, I sort of suspect Colbert barely knows who he is and simply took up for him because Trump cut him off.

One has to wonder what “fair-minded” means in the Colbert universe. He may think Ed Schultz is fair-minded.

Colbert was enraged by Trump’s behavior, so he decided to defend Dickerson during his own show’s monologue. This is where the story gets interesting. Ordinarily, Colbert does his job very well, but in riding to the rescue of John Dickerson, he unleashed a salvo of put-downs that weren’t funny or witty at all, and a couple were obscene.

Let’s see.

1. In a light-hearted dig, Trump called Dickerson’s program, Face the Nation, “Deface the Nation,” which was actually funny. Colbert said this: “Mr. President, I love your presidency, I call it ‘Disgrace The Nation.'”

That doesn’t work on any level. Trump’s presidency doesn’t have a title, because it’s not a TV show. Trump took a well-known phrase and put a new twist on it, which took a certain amount of wit. Colbert’s effort to turn the joke back on Trump sounded contrived and desperate. My guess: Colbert wrote this joke, and the others, himself.

2. Colbert said, “Let me introduce you to the Tiffany way. When you insult one member of the CBS family, you insult us all. Buzzinga.”

Tiffany is Trump’s apolitical daughter, who deserves to be left alone. Trump took a shot at a willing player in the political game, and Colbert made an ill-premised effort to put that player in the same out-of-bounds class as a girl who hasn’t bothered anyone. And what’s up with “buzzinga”? It sounded like Colbert was applauding himself. He might as well have said, “Oooh! Sick burn!” It’s as if he knew how weak the jab was, and he was trying to convince the audience he believed in it. If a line of dialogue is bad, you don’t throw your weight behind it. You cross it out and write something else. Right?

3. “You’re not the POTUS; you’re the BLOTUS.”

What’s that supposed to mean? Is he calling Trump fat? Is it suddenly okay for leftists to make fun of fat people? Is he going after Lena Dunham or Hillary Clinton next? Trump looks great for a man his age. If “Trump is fat” is now, as the hipsters like to put it, “a thing,” I haven’t heard about it.

4. “You’re the glutton with the button.”

What??? Does he mean the nuclear button? Is he accusing Trump of being unfit to be in charge of nuclear weapons because he eats too much? Does Trump even have a reputation for eating too much? This joke did about as well as North Korea’s last missile test.

5. “You’re a regular Gorge Washington.”

I can’t explain this one at all, except that again, it seems to be a fat joke. Like the ones Colbert hurled at Al Gore when he was pushing 300 pounds. Remember that? No? Hmm.

6. “You’re the Presi-dunce.”

Did he write that while he was walking to his mark? This is the kind of joke I would expect to see in sample material sent to Colbert’s show by wannabee writers who will never, ever break out of their jobs at Ikea and Starbucks. “Dear ___: While we thank you for your application, we regret to inform you…”

7. “You’re turning into a real p____-tator.”

“P____” is a bad word used to describe male genitalia. At this point, I have to wonder if Colbert was deliberately making terrible jokes in order to parody Trump’s efforts. I don’t think that’s true, though, because when Colbert imitated O’Reilly, he used good material. A more likely explanation is that Colbert was ad-libbing, which, apparently, he can’t.

Also, has Colbert gone all Colonel Kurtz on us? Does he think he owns his show? He doesn’t. He’s a CBS employee. Someone up high probably reminded him of that the day after his Trump spasm.

8. “You attract more skinheads than free Rogaine.”

It’s hard to believe this one got out of his mouth. I will say what everyone else in America is already thinking: skinheads aren’t bald because they lost their hair. They shave their heads, Steve. They want to be bald. Come on. Why would a person who shaves his head want Rogaine? It’s like saying a black man who straightens his hair wants curlers.

Maybe Colbert thinks Nazism is the result of bitterness due to social rejection caused by hair loss.

9. “You have more people marching against you than cancer.”

Is marching for cancer…”a thing”? I know there are walkathons and so on, but I don’t believe cancer draws actual protesters, due to the fact that cancer is a disease, not a social injustice. When you protest, cancer can’t see you. It doesn’t care about poll numbers. Again, I picture distraught writers trying to tackle Colbert as he walked out into the lights armed with these bombs. This crap reflects on them.

10. “You talk like a sign-language gorilla who got hit in the head.”

Sign-language gorillas don’t talk. They use sign language. I’m pretty sure. And if they could talk, hitting one in the head wouldn’t make him cocky or touchy, like our President. It would cause him to lose speech function. Perhaps Colbert is saying Trump sounds like he’s handicapped. I don’t really know what he’s saying, though. His potatoes came out of the oven before they were done.

11. “The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c___-holster.”

Again, Colbert uses a word meaning male sexual organ. This one is the cherry on the cake. It was Colbert’s utterly astonishing MOAB. It’s fitting that it came last, because it’s the one most worthy of discussion.

First of all, you said this on broadcast television, with kids watching (Yes, kids do watch late night shows.) After the fits leftists have had over mild expletives and so on from conservatives, you pulled this out? How could any talk show host with a gig hundreds of people would happily do just as well for less money say a thing like this? And Colbert is supposedly a Catholic Sunday school teacher. I wonder what he’ll teach this weekend. Does his church have him on a seven-second delay?

Apart from that, once more…not clever. This is the kind of thing little kids say after schoolyard fights. CBS shouldn’t pay a grown man to come up with lines like this. And where did you get the idea Trump is Putin’s friend? Have you heard of Syria? Do I have to explain that? Oh, wait. I forgot. The RUSSIA CONSPIRACY, which even Julian Assange denies. It’s the birtherism of the modern left. Assange denied it. Syria blew it apart. No matter. At CBS, it’s still dogma.

People are calling for Colbert’s dismissal. Not me. He should be fired, but I’m not calling for it, because I don’t care. I’m not all that angry, either. Mainly, I’m disturbed that a mainstream TV host thought it was okay to say these things, that his network only responded much later (weakly), and that many Americans think he deserves an award.

People criticize slippery slope theories, but they accurately describe the way societies work. Conservatives say convenience abortion will lead to infanticide. Leftists laugh. But it happened in China, and it also happened in Kermit Gosnell’s office and in the offices of other providers who haven’t been caught. There are now respected liberal pundits who say we should be allowed to kill babies after delivery. Most people thought it was fine when the cops arrested Robert Mitchum for smoking weed. Now you can smoke in a parade. We used to think tattoos were trashy. They caught on, and now “body modification” enthusiasts split their sex organs down the middle, cut their noses off, remove their cheeks, and dye their eyeballs black. Limb amputations will eventually follow (Fifty cents says they already have…let’s check…yes, at least 17 years ago.) People with traditional values were upset when Jack Paar used the phrase “water closet” on The Tonight Show in 1960. Now Stephen Colbert is accusing the President of performing oral sex on the ruler of Russia, and many of us approve.

Look at us.

I’m sure people think I’m nuts when I say America is now insane, and that it’s not a big moral jump to a time when murdering Christians and observant Jews in the street will be considered God’s work, but every day, the news proves how extreme we’ve gotten. Alternative righteousness keeps rising, and Christianity, increasingly, is portrayed as not merely wrong, but evil.

Colbert and his mentor, Jon Stewart, have a big time making fun of people who believe the end of this age is coming. Generally, they have pretended the axe they were grinding was political, but a few years ago, it became obvious that their real target was Christianity. They appeared at a march in Washington and said attendees were there for “a good time, not the end times.” They now have a running gag in which they share a prepper cabin out in the woods.

It’s like they’re making fun of Noah. Has anyone else caught that?

Noah took decades to finish the ark, in a world that had never seen rain. His neighbors thought he had lost his mind. They became increasingly gross and cruel. Surely, in that progressive atmosphere, he was ridiculed around the clock.

Then it started raining.

What did Jesus tell us? He said he would return in a period that was like the days of Noah and the days of Lot. Noah and Lot were good men who were delivered from places that underwent destruction. They were surrounded by people who thought they were crazy. Lot’s gay neighbors probably thought he was doing evil when he begged them not to rape the angels. Look how much our times look like those times.

We can’t take America back. I like the MAGA hats, but I’m not dumb enough to think they’re going to fix things. We will continue to deteriorate and coarsen. Colbert and Stewart are going to win. I’m not going to get agitated about it and go to rallies and get beaten up by warm, loving leftists. None of that stuff is going to work.

It’s disturbing to see the ship sink, isn’t it? America has never known a time like this. In the past, the pendulum would swing toward insanity, and then it would swing back. Now the swings toward sanity are getting shorter.

Jesus said the world would have birth pangs before his return, and I think I’ve misunderstood that. I thought he meant his return was a kind of birth, and that the pangs were for him. That’s wrong! They’re the birth pangs of the Beast. That’s the natural/supernatural cyborg which is about to spring onto the scene in glory and power. Jesus comes later.

We had the disgraceful Sixties, and then we sobered up a little. Then we had the politically correct Eighties, and then we realized we were deluded, and we started making fun of the term “politically correct.” Now PC is back, and it’s not going away. That’s how birth pangs work. They start off small, and then they get worse. Then the baby comes.

Even Colbert is getting a taste of the back of the Beast’s hand. Certain liberals are criticizing him because his remarks about Trump and Putin are anti-gay. They have a point. If Colbert really thought it was good for one man to have sex with another, why use a reference to oral sex as an insult? I assume that wasn’t how Colbert saw it when he was writing that “joke” in the makeup chair, but maybe he was, and anyway, it doesn’t matter. When it comes to PC, appearance is everything and intention is nothing. Guilt isn’t something you have to prove. It’s a premise. Like global warming.

If CBS doesn’t fire Colbert, it will be a stunning proof of the left’s hypocrisy. I don’t think it will serve any purpose, however. If you don’t know the left is crazy by now, Colbert’s survival won’t wake you up.

Colbert, a successor who is even worse…what does it matter? People come and go, but the spirits that control them are immortal and persistent. Madonna is washed up and wrinkled, but we have Lady Gaga. Before Madonna, we had Marilyn Monroe. New houses. Same owners.

How weird are things going to get before the end? If the mothership isn’t here by now, I hate to think what life will be like when it finally arrives.

To sum up, I guess, I will say this: it’s never about politics. It’s always about God and Satan. I’m glad conservatives won some important offices, but the ship is not going to stop sinking. We shouldn’t mistake temporary reprieves for victories.

I wonder what will happen next. I predict this: Colbert will not be disciplined in any real sense, and the reason is simply that conservatives want him to be disciplined.

Maybe we should beg the network to keep him.

More

I found out what “buzzinga” means, and I corrected the spelling. “Buzzinga” is a word used by a character on a TV show I don’t watch (CBS; need I explain?) The Big Bang Theory has a character named Sheldon, and he makes bad jokes. Evidently, once in a while he says “Buzzinga!” to celebrate the success of a joke which actually failed.

I still can’t figure out why Colbert said it, unless he was deliberately being unfunny and wanted hipsters to know it. But I don’t think that was the idea, since he seemed genuinely pleased with his lame jokes.

I also found out what “the Tiffany way” means. CBS calls itself “the Tiffany network,” so, assuming I have my universal translator set correctly, I believe Colbert was saying CBS has coopted the motto of the Hell’s Angels: “All on one and one on all,” which means that if you’re say, Hunter Thompson, and your attitude annoys one gang member, they all stomp you into the floor of a bar.

Hope my lack of hipness hasn’t utterly ruined my credibility.

Still waiting for an explanation of “BLOTUS.”

One Response to “Count to Ten and Improve Your Comedy-Writing Skills”

  1. Steve B Says:

    Sad to see. I thought Colbert was nominally funny, and he made a pretty good faux foil to Stewart, but I was slowly turned off as I watched both of them get less and less funny and more and more vicious. I guess Colbert went full on Trump Derangement Syndrome. Sad to see.

    Interesting insight about the “birth pangs.” Certainly makes sense. I’ve also thought about something similar where the Bible talks about “the restrainer” being taken out. I used to think maybe that was the Holy Spirit, but that doesn’t really jibe. Then I thought maybe it was some Angel or something that restrained US and kept things from getting out of hand. Now more and more I think the restrainer is talking about a strong spirit/angel that is restraining what is to come. The beast or whatever we call it. It’s like God’s going finally drop the leash and let whatever is coming charge through the gate.