Steve Bacher writes…
I appreciate your comments on Sacha Baron Cohen's new and old shows and why you don't enjoy them. But I'm curious to know if you feel the same way about segments on The Daily Show or Full Frontal where correspondents are sent to interview a semi-public figure to show them in a bad light, or to question, say, Trump supporters on the street to let them hang themselves on their own words.
Don't some of the same things apply? I'm sure some footage gets discarded on the editing floor for these as well.
Btw, I always hated America's Funniest Home Videos because they were almost all predicated on the notion that it's funny to see someone in pain. Fictional comic characters in pain can certainly be greatly funny (cf. Laurel and Hardy). Real pain inflicted on real people, whether by accident or otherwise, I don't find amusing in the least…even if self-inflicted.
I haven't seen what you describe on Full Frontal…but then I rarely watch that program. Dozens of episodes were accumulating on my TiVo and sitting there unwatched. I finally dumped them, canceled my Season Pass and decided to give the show another chance one of these days. That day hasn't come yet.
Regarding The Daily Show, my understanding is that they have a pretty firm policy of not misrepresenting themselves, whereas Sacha Baron Cohen has a pretty firm policy of not telling interviewees who he is or what the interview is for. This is apparently why they've been springing a lot of traps on Big Names in the months before the show's debut tonight. Everyone's going to be on the watch for Cohen now. If you want an interview with a prominent right-wing figure, you may have to produce several forms of I.D. to prove you're not Sacha Baron Cohen.
Of course, The Daily Show is edited and if I went before their cameras and came off as a boob on the finished show, I'm sure I'd claim I was victimized by selective editing. I'd probably be accusing them of being Fake Fake News. I just don't get the sense that they're as sneaky or as interested in making their subjects look like jackasses.
I rarely laugh at depictions of anyone in pain unless they're so over-the-top outrageous that the joke is not the pain but the exaggeration of it. Ralph Kramden hitting his thumb with a hammer comes to mind and many scenes in cartoons but not much more…not even a lot of what my favorite comedians, Laurel and Hardy, did. And yes, I know that may seem odd but that's just not something that amuses me.
Getting back to The Daily Show by the way, I'm currently working my way through a book that is much, much better than I was expecting — The Daily Show (The Book): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests. It's much longer and more detailed than you'd think, giving many Rashomon accounts of the same incident and delving deeply into process. There's also history that was not reported at the time like an incident where Mssr. Stewart and Colbert briefly resigned. I thought I knew a lot about this show but clearly I did not know as much as I thought.
I bought the book on Kindle and now and then when I find myself waiting somewhere, I open the old iPhone and read a few pages. That's the only reason I haven't finished it yet. It's a perfect book for that. I also like that while it quotes Stewart extensively, it doesn't do so exclusively. Everyone else on the staff gets their say and often, they are not in perfect alignment with the man who was then their Boss. It is to Mr. Stewart's credit that he allowed that to happen…and they even went out and got quotes from folks like John McCain, Tucker Carlson and Jim Cramer.
The amazing interview Stewart did with Cramer is well-covered. In case you don't remember it: Stewart pilloried the CNBC Financial Advisor-Host for giving out lousy advice to his watchers. In the press and on other shows, Cramer complained that Stewart had misquoted him and mistreated him. Then Cramer went on The Daily Show, Stewart hauled out video clips and Cramer wound up saying, "Yeah, you were right."
One reason it's taking me so long to get through the book is that I keep stopping to do research. I stopped to find and watch again the Stewart-Cramer interview, which is still on the Comedy Central website and easily found with four seconds of Googling. Fascinating, fascinating stuff…and it made me miss that Daily Show even more than I already did. You can order a copy of the book at this link. I suggest you do.