Q: Is there anything funny about Fox News' "The 1/2 Hour News Hour"?

A: As people who know me well¹ know, I have a cold, icy, steel heart made of steel and very cold ice; and thus I very rarely Laugh-Out-Loud at anything, unless I'm drunk and/or hitting on you and/or so bewildered by the blackness of mortality that laughter is the only means by which to release the tension in my cold, icy, steel, bronze heart of ice.²

Among the things least likely to coax sincere laughs out of me (e.g., Carlos Mencia; Schindler's List; Carlos Mencia) is the Fox News' 1/2 Hour News Hour, a.k.a., the conservative³ Daily Show, a.k.a., this thing:



(I am averting my eyes and ears. Please tell me when it is over.)

(No, wait, tell me when the hot girl is talking; and then tell me when it is over.)

After watching that, you will surely be surprised when I tell you there is something funny about The 1/2 News Hour: The Comedy Central Insider's coverage of it is very funny. I even found myself LOL'ing at this bit —

Even a brief showing by brilliant alternative comedian Ann Coulter — who, for years, has managed to trick most of the country into believing that he's a vitriolic female conservative — couldn't pull the show above the level of a high school AV club produced parody.⁴

— after which I was disturbed to find myself sober and alone.

MEANWHILE: Washinton Post TV critic Tom Shales writes that The 1/2 Hour has "funny spots." "In a nutshell," he concludes, "it isn't terrible."

The Washington Monthly's (liberal) Kevin Drum begs to differ, calling it "bad. Really bad." On the other side of the political spectrum, the National Review's David Frum applauds the program's mirthfu—oh, no wait, he hated it even more than the liberal did:

The 1/2 Hour News Hour is not a right-of-center comedy show. It's more like some not very clever left-wing blogger's mean-spirited parody of a right-of-center comedy show: "These right-wingers are so clueless that they would think it funny that Barack Obama's initials are BO."

What a minute ... maybe that's exactly what "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" really is! Maybe it's some ultra-Colbertian exercise in meta-irony: a parody within a parody within a parody... Seriously: The 1/2 Hour News Hour is so unfunny as to be affirmatively insulting.

In a related development, producer Joel Surnow had all of these critics tortured to death.

ANYWAY: T.A.M.S.Y. missed the first episode, but we'll be certain to report back after the follow-up airs, Sunday at 10pm. Unless we forget.

SIDENOTE: It will be interesting to see how much of the surprisingly many Nielsen families who caught the premier come back for more.

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¹ No one knows me well.
² I can be commonly found doing all three simultaneously.
³ I should note here — on behalf and in defense of dear reader Sean McWasp — that I am not using the term "conservative" in the traditional sense (e.g., that conservative fellow over there strongly dislikes government wastefulness), but rather in the modern sense, as a synonym for "ignorant and hateful" (e.g., that conservative fellow over there strongly dislikes the mosque through which he just drove a truck).
⁴ I just noticed this may have been written by Internet comedy veteran and sometime-T.A.M.S.Y. reader Lindsay Lindsayism, to whom I tip my hat.