TELEVISION Nowhere is it written that conservatives can’t be funny. Conservatives can, in fact, be absolutely rip-roaringly funny. Take South Park, which is conservative in its own smug libertarian way, or anything ever done by Christopher Buckley or Mike Judge (whose last film, Idiocracy, is as conservative as it is bitingly hilarious). So when Fox News trotted out The Half Hour News Hour, its version of Comedy Central’s liberal vanguard The Daily Show, there was no guarantee that it was going to be terrible. But it was. So terrible that there has been speculation among right-wing bloggers that the show is an evil Democratic plot to prove Republicans can’t do comedy. They may have a point. This show has a Metacritic.com score of 14, the lowest score a show has received in the site’s history. It has less than half the score of Pepper Dennis. Yes, it’s that bad.
Produced by Joel Surnow and Manny Coto — who also created 24, America’s favorite source of torture porn — The Half Hour News Hour debuted Feb. 18. The opening skit, set in January 2009, featured newly elected President Rush Limbaugh and Vice President Ann Coulter. Limbaugh gloated that "the grown-ups are finally back in charge" and that he was glad "Howard Dean has finally gotten the medical attention he so clearly needed." This statement was odd, considering Limbaugh’s recent prescription drug problems; it could have been funny if it contained even a single iota of self-awareness. The scene only made sense in the show’s context of the Republicans being out of power for years — meaning that their simply being in a position of authority is a joke in itself. Since two branches of government are firmly in Republican control and the other only changed hands a couple months ago, this reveals more about the forever embittered, always-the-underdog Republican psyche than it does anything reutf8g to humor.
The rest of the show involved jokes that were both stupidly obvious and hardly topical, such as making fun of Ed Begley Jr.’s electric car (1987 called — it wants its joke back) and the ACLU defending hate groups (1957 called — ditto). Even worse, The Half Hour News Hour never mentioned George W. Bush. It’s understandable that Fox doesn’t want to go after its own, but for a show that’s supposed to be topical, that’s unforgivable. Maybe Fox should stop trying to be funny and go back to being unintentionally hilarious, like it is with the rest of its programming. (Aaron Sankin)
www.foxnews.com/specials
PREVIEW Outside Luciano Pavarotti and Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons), Barrington Levy may be in possession of the best set of pipes in modern music. He has the unique ability to go from smooth sweetness to blistering power and then back in the same breath, sometimes in the same note. That he can belt it out without breaking a sweat makes everything he does all the more impressive. Born in Clarendon, Jamaica, in 1964, Levy started performing in the late 1970s and quickly became the undisputed king of the dancehall craze that took over the island’s music scene in the ’80s. While lesser artists might have been content to rest on their laurels, Levy has toured and recorded relentlessly, releasing 25 full-lengths over the course of his career. Opening on both nights for Levy are the Reggae Angels, an up-and-coming San Francisco roots reggae band. (Aaron Sankin) BARRINGTON LEVY With Reggae Angels, Green Up Soundsystem (Wed. only), and DJ Wisdom (Thurs. only). Wed/10–Thurs/11, 9 p.m. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. $27. (415) 771-1421, www.independentsf.com
Barrington Levy