"I would say," he heavy-panted to Charlie Rose Friday on PBS, "with Senator Obama, nuclear energy is on the table."
As if the words weren't ugly enough, the cow eyes the Charlies made back and forth at one another (like something out of Zoolander) really sent it over the top. So much so, in fact, that he managed to beat Tiny Teethed Davy Brooks who also appeared on Rose's yawn-fest Friday (we'll come back to it).
The senator's words are only schocking if you haven't been paying attention. Barack's bought and paid for by the nuclear industry and assorted other enemies of the environment. But a number of people were shocked when we repeated the words -- shocked that they came from Schumer. "There really isn't a Democratic Party anymore, is there?" asked one who early voted for Barack and would now take back that vote. In answer to the question, no, there really isn't a Democratic Party.
There is a cult around an egomaniac and it took a lot of ego for Barack to do his infomercial Wednesday night. For those who can't remember, H. Ross Perot bought TV time in 1992. That's where the similarities end -- though none of your Water Cooler Set could set you straight.
The billionaire Perot bought the spots with his own money and he didn't use them to air Whitman's "Song Of Myself." He used the his infomercial to address the economy -- which, for the record, was in a lot better shape in 1992 than it is currently.
But there was Barack, for a half hour (on all the networks except for ABC) hawking photos of his parents, showing clips of his speeches -- just underscoring how pathetic and unaccomplished he truly is. Think about it, a half-hour of network time with no (other) commercials? Frank Sinatra got an hour of time -- with commercials -- from CBS on November 16, 1965. Unlike Barack, Frank had plenty of accomplishments to point to.
Election 2008, when the presidential election became one of those faux-reality shows and, if Barack didn't have the appeal of Evan Marriott, he was a dead ringer for Rick Rockwell.
Dead was 30 Rock Thursday night. The big return that petered out.
The claim is: It's a hit!
That's the lie they're pimping. While 30 Rock did indeed get its best ratings ever, the reality is that it has never had good ratings. In what was the 'big' return, the failed and failing and flailing sitcom came in third. Translation, it beat Supernatural on the CW but not much else. In other words, it's a bomb.
That's very hard for the Water Cooler Set to state. Maybe they fear losing out on an NBC tote bag or free GE light bulbs? Whatever the fear is, the truth is the truth.
Truth is the debut episode was third for the night in its timeslot. Another sad truth is that the show got a little bit higher of rating (.4) than did the pilot episode two years ago. Three years later and that's all the show can brag about?
If you're singing "Right Back Where We Started From," you may have actually watched. The season three opener was a lot like season's one "The Baby Show." In that one, Liz (Fey) was consumed with baby fever and ended up abducting a small child. Thursday, Liz was consumed with baby fever yet again -- and still 'tragically' single. It was all so retro and offensive that, had a man written it and it starred Blair Brown, people would be up in arms. Instead, expect Tina to get a pass for her backlash claptrap.
We have to note the hair (we'll be kind and avoid the waistline). If Madonna was sporting Bette Davis' Poodle a year back (see Live Earth), Tina's sporting The Shetland. It's the overly long, overly curly thing. The comedy she's attempting to do is supposed to be sleek and brisk. Supposed to be.
But you can't be sleek and brisk and bet the farm on Oprah. The suits are pissed at the ratings. But one told us that they still have hopes for this week. We tried not to laugh as they explained Oprah means big ratings. On daytime TV, maybe once upon a time.
30 Rock once provided Jerry Seinfeld's return to sitcom form but now hopes to become the big Thursday happening by offering the increasingly unpopular Oprah playing a MAD TV version of herself. Tired and tiring.
TV and Tina's hair were so ugly last week that another network took pity on viewers. CBS put an X on The Ex-List. And thank goodness for that. The meandering show played like a combo of all the wrong parts from Sandy Dennis' Sweet November and Tuesday Weld's A Safe Place. This really bad one hour show was supposed to be both comedy and drama but never supplied either.
The show revolved around Bella Bloom -- yes, you can get a tooth ache from that name. Bella's problem wasn't that she'd never experienced love, it was that she'd misplaced it like a set of keys. So each week, she would team up with an ex to discover whether or not he was Mr. Right. It was as dull as it sounds and so was Bella who, as a friend pointed out to her, owns her own business next to the beach and won't even make time to hit the beach. When you're that much of a drip, maybe you didn't misplace your true love, maybe he ran like hell from you?
A lot of uglies showed up during the show's four episodes. Brian Van Holt was the ex two Fridays ago when the show aired for the last time. He was actually an improvement in that he could act and was attractive. But it was like sitting through another Peter Griffith "chick film" (Steel Vaginas II?) as nothing ever happened. One of the subplots involved Daphne Bloom getting married. Not in episode four, not in episode one, two or three. In fact, it was one of those sub-'plots' that's as ill thought out as the main plot where nothing ever happens there either. Each week, Bella meets an ex and he's nice and she's nice and, gosh darn it, it's all just so wholesome it's as though Pax never ceased to be a network.
CBS did viewers a solid by not making them suffer through the show on Friday, NBC did viewers a solid by bringing back Ben Affleck as host on last night's SNL.
Ben's best moments in the past involve the Who Wants To Be Groped By An Eleven-Thousandaire? skit, the skit where he attempts to impersonate Matt Damon in order to land Mango and the Fantatic spoof. Our big concern with Ben hosting wasn't fear of having to say something bad about someone we know and like because Ben actually is funny.
Among his best moments was a skit where he played Keith Olbermann in all his blustering. He did a funny pitch-meeting sketch, amused in the Target sketch as Sir Cumfrence, and he was funny in The View spoof (so was Casey Wilson as Jennifer Aniston -- the rest of that skit was disgusting including using men to play women) but it's the latter that brings up our fear.
So let's say it. The best SNL host of the 90s was? Alec Baldwin. (Baldwin still makes a good host and Baldwin was who Ben played in The View sketch.) But along the way, Baldwin's best moments became small screen ones. His rise at SNL goes hand-in-hand with the demise of his leading man career on the big screen. If you grasp that Ben's Gigli is Alec's The Getaway, you can see how the comparison could get scary.
Scary was Seth yet again trying to do Weekend Update solo. We were asked why we didn't comment on Seth's facial hair and our honest reply was, we just assumed his tastes, like his jokes, were very old. That would explain his Miami Vice look. However, we were informed that Seth's fronting the shadow because he's trying to 'butch up' and is worried about how he comes across on camera? Seth, anyone thinking your gay is actually crediting you with much more depth than you possess. Silly viewers, whores don't have depth, they just run up the meter.
Seth had time to tell Palin 'jokes' on Weekend Update, he had time for "Joe The Plumber" 'jokes,' but, strangely, he didn't have time to note that Barack's aunt is living in Boston in public housing and against government's orders which demanded her deportation back in 2004. In the good old days, if Lorne had ever caught anyone trying to carry the water like that for any candidate, they would have been gone. Back then, he saw himself as the last protector of comedy. These days, he goes along -- making so many who remember his sneering and scorning of The Carol Burnette Show (a better show in any season than SNL in any season) point out just how badly he needs to be retired.
As always Seth got in his insults at John McCain. This time, to his face. McCain guested playing himself in the opening and on Weekend Update. The one-time host of SNL proved to be far more relaxed on SNL than he was in any debate. In the opening skit, he had to endure Tina Fey's increasingly tired spoof of Palin. Tina's never had the voice down but she's no longer even consistent. (She uses her own voice when she starts whispering about 2012.) She had nothing to offer but her usual bitchy moments. McCain played good sport and Cindy McCain played a spokesmodel (displaying McCain "Fine Gold") in the opening as well. The McCains were very good sports and only drove home (yet again) how there are no jokes about Barack on SNL. He must be treated with kid gloves and sealed in a vacuum.
The McCains stuck around for the entire show and were on stage for the goodbyes. We were asked (by SNL writer friend) if we noticed the beeline Tina made for Cindy? Yes, we did. But then Tina hasn't been ridiculing Cindy McCain, has she? Sarah Palin's whom she avoided and whom she's been ridiculing.
She's been as bitchy about Sarah Palin as Tiny Teethed Davy Brooks and what a proud moment this must be for both of them. Friday, Davy Brooks was justifying his disdain for Palin and for what she represents (populism, he explained). If you could get past those Island of Dr. Moreau teeth, you could enjoy him whining that he wasn't elitist! He wasn't! It wasn't fair to call him an elitist!
Charlie Rose tried to flip it into a good thing and started yammering on about who wouldn't want to be the best? But Davy was having none of it. Read his lips, he's not an elitist.
So what if he writes for The New York Times, so what if he coins terms like "bobo"s (which sound a little too art school for the masses and why the term never caught on with Republicans), so what if he wears pink shirts on camera, so what if he purses his lips a great deal, so what if
Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic) described him in September as "Latte-sipping, Chardonnay-swilling sissy David Brooks"? He's as much a two-fisted He-Man as Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis and Paul Lynde. Say it to his face and he'll likely strike you across your own with a white glove.
In a week that saw the alleged comedy 30 Rock tank and saw another (The Ex-List) pulled from the air, Davy Brooks proved laughs can still be had on TV provided the characters are larger than life and the performers are not afraid to make a fool out of themselves.