CHARADES: Is Gutfeld! really a comedy show?

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Only within a charade: The final score was 217-215—and it wasn't even an NBA all-star game!

In the midst of this conflagration, "the most authoritative and trusted source of entertainment business news" decided it was time to profile the Fox News Channel's Greg Gutfeld, the 60-year-old host of the Fox News Channel's weeknight Gutfeld! program.

Briefly, we'll revisit our dead horese. Variety's lengthy cover story started exactly like this:

How Greg Gutfeld Became the Bill Maher of Fox News—And Toppled Fallon and Colbert in the Ratings

On a Tuesday in February, Hollywood is in the throes of a “Bonfire of the Vanities” moment. Karla Sofía Gascón’s old social media posts, with shocking takes on George Floyd (“a drug addict swindler”) and Islam (“an infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured”), are roiling awards season and have turned the actress into a pariah. But the “Emilia Pérez” star, the first openly trans person nominated for an acting Oscar, is also a tricky subject to satirize.

Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert have ignored the conflagration that has engulfed this year’s standard-bearing #Resistance film. The task is left to Greg Gutfeld, whose eponymous Fox News show has made him the most-watched man in late night.

Throughout the profile, Tatania Siegel fashions Gutfeld as the hoist of a "late night" comedy show. At one point, she even calls him "the king of late night.")

There are two parts to that designation. In our view, each part is inaccurate—part of a sprawling charade.

Is Greg Gutfeld really the host of a late night comedy show? In fact, his program doesn't appear in the "late night" hours anywhere in the country. 

Way out there in Tinseltown, the program airs at 7 p.m. That isn't even part of primetime, as that realm has traditionally been defined, for example by the leading authority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_time

True believers will probably say that one out of two ain't half bad. Gutfeld! may not be a late night show, they'll say, but surely it must be a "comedy" show. 

So a reader might assume after reading Variety's profile.

We're sorry, Virginia, but no! Without any question, the program incorporates comedy elements into its nightly proceeding. But like almost all shows on the Fox News Channel, Gutfeld! is primarily a propaganda show—a program designed to spread the preapproved messaging of its corporate owner.

To be even more precise, Gutfeld! appears on a "cable news" channel. But it would also be a major stretch to think of it as a "news" program. 

Like almost all shows on the Fox News Channel, Gutfeld! is primarily a propaganda program. It's a primetime program devoted to advancing the pre-approved messaging of its corporate owner.

Sometimes that pre-approved messaging may be built on a plausible base. Sometimes, the premise behind the preapproved messaging may even, on balance, be "right."     

On balance, though, this is a hard-core propaganda show which uses comedy elements to drive its messaging—messaging which is frequently remarkably ugly and stunningly atavistic.

Whatare the comedy elements to which we refer? Let's take a look at the structure!

Aas far as we know, the 60-year-old host of the show never earned his living as a comedian. That said, he typically starts each program with two or three minutes of jokes. 

It's rarely hard to spot the onset of the night assault—of the corporate propaganda. Last night, to cite one recent example, this was the host's second joke:

GUTFELD (2/25/25): Rachel Maddow slammed her own network over its decision to replace a number of on-air talent. True, it does look bad that MSNBC fired a black woman and yet kept on two white women.

[PHOTO OF MADDOW AND CHRIS HAYES]

AUDIENCE: LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE

We were still in the program's first minute. After an initial joke comparing Joy Reid to a cannibalistic (black) murderer, Gutfeld drew a big laugh from his studio audience by describing Hayes as a woman.

We were still in the program's first minute. The lid had already been removed from the can.

The tone of the sequence continued. In a tagline to his third joke, the host referred to Governor Tony Evers (D-Wisc.) as Wisconsin's "lesbian governor." The fourth joke was based on the premise that Governor Pritzker (D-Ill.) is just too freaking fat. 

At 10:02—7:02 out on the coast—the merriment ended with this:

GUTFELD: Finally, in England, a horse was rescued after falling halfway through a wooden bridge. Welcome to my world, said one woman.

[PHOTO OF JOY BEHAR]

AUDIENCE: LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE

Behar is 83 years old. On a nightly basis, Gutfeld compares her to elephants, horses, walruses, cows, jokingly saying that she's too fat, but also that she's sexually unattractive.

It was now 10:03—7:03 on the coast. Whatever you might think of a string of jokes of this remarkable type, the string of jokes was now over. 

With respect to that nightly string of jokes, trust us—it can get worse. At this point, a problem appears:

In her profile of Gutfeld, Siegel never comes to terms with the content of this program's comedy elements. In fairness, she does come close at one point, when she reports this one lone criticism of Gutfeld:

“I think he uses this label of ‘comedian’ as armor to be able to get away with things that Bret Baier or Sean Hannity wouldn’t say,” says Andrew Lawrence, deputy research director of advocacy organization Media Matters for America. “I know humor is subjective. I know people do find him funny, but I don’t really see where the humor is in there. He just really strikes me as mean.” 

That’s precisely the point. 

The meanness is precisely the point, Siegel says, in her own voice. That said, she doesn't offer any examples of what she's talking about. Readers are given no examples of the gentleman's meanness—or of the obsession with insults based on sex and gender which anchors his comedy pallet. 

These insults, based on sex and gender, routinely seem to carry a certain familiar odor. As noted, Behar and the other women of The View are routinely compared to very large animals.

Other jokes are routinely built on the theme that Nancy Pelosi—she's 84 years old—has had too many facelifts or has perhaps used too much Botox. In the last month or so, a photo of Governor Hochul's face has often been thrown up on the screen, where it's subjected to ridicule.

This pallet forms the basis for this 60-year-old person's nightly array of jokes. In a clownishly comical bit of evasion, Siegel never mentions this, but she does offer this at one point:

When Gutfeld surveys the broader comedy field, he’s unimpressed. He struggles to name a host he finds funny outside of [Bill] Maher and Joe Rogan. 

[...]

The election proved that some of those “other guys” no longer are influential. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris opted to sit down with Howard Stern on SiriusXM, thinking his audience of white men could help tip the election in her favor. But for better or for worse, Stern was more relevant when he was a shameless misogynist who fixated on porn stars.

Sad! Correctly or otherwise, for better or worse, Siegel is willing to say that Howard Stern was once "a shameless misogynist." At the same time, she never reports a blindingly obvious fact:

She never says that Gutfeld's comedy pallet is littered with material which seems to come from a much earlier cultural era—with material which would strike almost anyone as being overtly misogyny=adjacent as judged by present-day standards and norms.

Stern was a shameless misogynist; Gutfeld is said to be "mean," in a way which goes described.  This is the way a profile goes when it's really a journalistic charade—an imitation of life. 

Back to last night's program! It was now 10:03 p.m. —7:03 out on the coast—but the opening jokes were done. That said, the program's comedy elements were still in the saddle. On a nightly basis, the program works like this:

The program's 60-year-old host starts with some jokes in which he assails women in their mid-80s for being too fat, for failing to meet his standards of sexual attractiveness, and for using too much Botox.

After several minutes of this, he offers the evening's "monologue"—a lengthy statement of his view on some matter of public policy.

Insulting, "humorous" side remarks are likely to continue during this presentation. But he is now engaged in a type of presentation which is much more like an opinion column and much less like a "comedy" set. 

After presenting his view, he tuirns to a four-member panel of guests, asking them to offer their views on the topic in question. As the show continues through the hour, this same panel will be asked to state their views on three or four other topics.

Is this program a comedy show? On a regular basis, this four-member panel will include several lesser-known comedians. Last Friday night, all four members of the panel were lesser-known touring comedians.

That said, these people won't be asked to offer stand-up performances. Instead, they'll be asked to offer their views on the topics at hand. One instant problem obtains:

However one may regard these panelists as comedians, there is rarely any sign that they bring anything resembling expertise or specialized knowledge, to the discussion at hand. 

This program doesn't offer commentary from expert guests. As a general matters, it offers commentary from a panel of fairly obvious flyweights—each of whom is guaranteed to agree with every single word the program's host has just said.

All in all, this stage-managed format produces one of the stupidest "cable news" programs ever put on the air. 

For better or worse, mainstream journalism lacks an established language for describing a program like this as simply being stupid. In fairness, that lack of a journalistic tradition isn't Siegel's doing or fault.

That said, her refusal to describe what actually happens on this show frequently takes us past the comically awful to the realm we would describe as an imitation of life. This, for example, is the way Siegel describes the Gutfeld comedy pallet:

Gutfeld differs significantly from the field in tone. After Fallon expressed regret over having Donald Trump on as a guest in 2016 and tousling his hair, he now mostly avoids the polarizing president in his monologues, while Colbert and Meyers have gone all-in on #Resistance humor. Most stick to the Carson format of a celebrity guest promoting a new project. “Gutfeld!” is a closer match to Bill Maher’s old ABC show “Politically Incorrect,” with co-hosts Kat Timpf and Tyrus helping to anchor conversations that frequently rib the obese, the easily triggered and the hosts of “The View.” (Writer Gene Nelson leans into the we’ll-go-there sensibility, telling the crowd ahead of the taping I attend: “I can make fun of fat people because my best friend is”—his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper—“gay. And Jewish.”) His elaborate, stagy pauses turn the statement into a joke and briefly conceal that what he says makes no sense.

Truly, that's a journalistic charade—an imitation of human life. 

According to Siegel, Howard Stern used to be shamelessly misogynistic. Gutfeld merely engages in humor which "frequently ribs the obese." That's all he's doing when he compares the women of The View to a succession of barnyard creatures! 

He and his co-hosts and guests also "rib the easily triggered," Siegel murkily says, making no attempt to explain that fuzzy statement. Along the way, she spends more time quoting incoherent remarks by one of the program's writers than she devotes to describing the actual content of what Gutfeld says on the air. 

Clownishly, Siegel also quotes Gutfeld saying this, as we noted in yesterday's report:

Gutfeld is an unlikely king of late night. With a panel format instead of the one-on-one setup of his peers, “Gutfeld!” features a hodgepodge of regulars who were once ubiquitous until they tilted rightward, such as comedian Rob Schneider and Vincent Gallo. His rivals, he says, are losing audience share because they adhere to “a very narrow, agreed-upon groupthink” and, therefore, can “never be funny.” ... In fact, “Gutfeld!” is beating “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” “Real Time With Bill Maher” and “The Daily Show” by every measure and is uniquely poised to ride the Trump 2.0 wave.

As we noted yesterday, Schneider and Gallo simply aren't regular guests on the Gutfeld! program. Other people actually are. 

Also, the idea that his guests were once "ubiquitous" (gifted with mainstream popularity?) until they shifted rightward is a ridiculous fantasy. Most of his comedian guests are drawn from the touring D-list—are people who have massively gained in exposure, income and popularity from appearing as regulars on Gutfeld's program.

That said, nothing could possibly be more absurd than Gutfeld's complaint that network hosts like Colbert, Kimmel and Fallon adhere to “a very narrow, agreed-upon groupthink” and therefore can “never be funny.” 

However one might assess the work of those network hosts, no one on the face of the earth adheres to “a very narrow, agreed-upon groupthink” to a greater extent than the host of the Gutfeld! program. Gutfeld! is one of the dumbest "news" shows ever aired, but it's also one of the most predictable and most aggressively scripted.

Starting with co-hosts Tyrus and Timpf, the program's scripting is largely accomplished through its selection of stooges as guests. You will simply never see a panelist question or challenge the host's fundamental point of view or anything the host has said. 

The guests are paid to sing along, and sing along they do. Aside from the program's unending coarse tone, this produces one of the stupidest TV "news" programs in the history of the medium.

This is one of the dumbest "news" programs ever aired. It's actually a propaganda program—and yes, it's on the air in prime time. Siegel wasn't even willing to make that simple point clear.

In closing, let's be fair! Some of the viewpoints Gutfeld advances are built on a reasonable base. That said, his program comes from the emotional realm of the ancient "night assault," from the realms of plunder and arson.

At the world's most authoritative site, Siegel was willing to see and report none of this. Instead, she offers a journalistic charade, but she's hardly alone in her refusal to walk and talk like an actual human with respect to this very strange, aging host.

Tomorrow: Let's take a look at the panelists