The morning after Fox News launched its deeply unusual foray into the late-night comedy space, comedian Ron Funches summed up the general reaction by tweeting: “Gutfield will be renewed from comedians who hate to watch alone.”
Greg Gutfeld – a longtime co-host of Fox News five of the who is known for such an unpleasant comment as minimizing the cost of war, rejecting obvious racism and undoubtedly Donald Trump’s suggestion – launched a new show on Monday night at 11 p.m. Gutfeld! Its title evokes the failure of Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign and the logo design looks very similar to Garfield comics as comedian Tim Heidecker Highlighted before broadcast.
“I’m as dizzy as Kamala Harris explaining the kids in cages,” Gutfeld told viewers at the top of the show. “Or Woody Allen hearing about children in cages.” From there, he presented bizarre “parodies” of Brian Williams from MSNBC reporting “from the surface of Mars” (referring to a six-year-old media scandal, as current) and a committee of CNN, which acted badly, in which two white people accused each other of being racist.
Given that Gutfeld used his opening monologue to directly attack the great late hosts with whom he “should compete,” accusing Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon of being essentially risk averse, limping, and “joking” that Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers “ran together to be obscure,” we decided to ask real comedians to criticize his attempts at “comedy.”
Particularly missing from the late-night hosts on Gutfeld’s shit list was HBO’s Bill Maher, perhaps because the insulting “New Rules” tearing through every episode of Real time seem to be his greatest inspiration.
Former Daily show producer – and currently nominated for an Oscar for writing Borat Moviefilm later—Jena Friedman instantly acknowledged the similarities, telling The Daily Beast, “It’s like watching a divorced guy make the impression of Bill Maher,” adding, “The impression of Bill Maher is not bad!”
“It reminds me of the boss whose jokes you are forced to laugh at,” she continued. “I didn’t think it was bad for someone who had never done comedy … just a little bitter and upset.”
“Just because something has the cadence of a joke doesn’t make it a joke,” the former said Night show added writer Sasha Stewart, before referring to the warm laughter in the background. “I am sorry for the five employees who make up the laughter track. I know they’re hired because it’s the kind of sharp, painful laughter of a person who barely gets enough to be there. ”
Conan writer Laurie Kilmartin was reluctant to directly criticize the “competition,” but posted this “promo” for the show on Twitter before it aired:
And Blaire Erskine, who is best known for her Twitter videos of MAGA, has had many questions. “Why is she called ‘GG’ as if she were someone’s grandmother?” she wondered. “Why do I feel like he’s reading his opening teleprompter manifesto for the first time? But more importantly, why is he holding his white hand in a clipboard that holds what appears to be a stack of empty files? ”
Former White House speechwriter Jon Lovett, who wrote some of Barack Obama’s best jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and offers his own version of a late-style monologue on his podcast each week Lovett or Leave It, found a bit of humor in Gutfeld’s claim to do something “different” from any other Fox show.
“Love a monologue about being brave enough to take over the culture. Finally, someone is willing to say at 11 what was said and at 8, 9 and 10. Greg will not be silenced! Lovett told us. “It simply came to our notice then. Fox News is bad. But then, for good measure, he added, “I approve of all Woody Allen jokes.”
Anthony Atamanuik, din Show the President fame, was at the same time puzzled by the anti-corporatist discourse that took over the second half of Gutfeld’s monologue. “It was a confusing noise that contained five-year-old reference jokes, woven into a toothless serpentine ‘stand’ against social networks and corporations that ended in a helpless and humorless sputum of self-importance.” he said.
Others were less willing to give Gutfeld the time of day. Arrived for comments, ex Night show host Larry Wilmore replied in two words: “No, thank you.”
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