Colin Jost takes the sketch artists down!

MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2024

Straight outta Staten Island: For what it's worth, we disagree with Jason Zinoman's assessment of Colin Jost's performance at Saturday night's TV dinner.

(That doesn't mean that Zinowitz's assessment is "wrong.")

We thought Colin Jost was good. We'll score this as his best joke:

It is the best time in history to be a courtroom sketch artist. My God, the most famous man on Earth is on trial, and there’s no cameras allowed. Just the artists, their pastels and their desire to make Trump look as bad as possible.

We're omitting the tag line, which didn't rise to the level of the joke. 

We're imagining that the joke about the Gotham sketch artists came straight outta Staten Island. Jost grew up in that wild island province, with a family inheritance he mentioned Saturday night, to great effect.

The leading authority on Jost's family background tells us this:

Colin Jost was born and raised in New York City in the Grymes Hill neighborhood of Staten Island. His mother, Kerry J. Kelly, was the chief medical officer for the New York City Fire Department, and his father, Daniel A. Jost, was a teacher at Staten Island Technical High School.

His grandfather was a Staten Island firefighter too, as he described in moving detail at the end of his presentation. 

Just a guess! That kind of background may give a performer eyes to see the way the world may look—not necessarily crazily—to those on The Other Side of the current continental divide. We liked that particular joke because it crossed that type of line.

We also liked his early, well-delivered joke about "Doug," along with the way he quickly brought it all back home to his own status as a type of "second gentleman." Returning to the leading authority, we like what the highlighted line may seem to imply:

Jost names Norm Macdonald as a primary influence for his Update anchor work. Macdonald's tone was the one Jost grew up with in high school. He also names Tina Fey as an influence.

We have one semi-small complaint about Fey—a semi-small complaint derived from her feature film, Mean Girls. But in our view, she has a very level of wit. 

(For ourselves, the two most impressive sets we ever saw were both performed by Paula Poundstone. They're tied with the set we saw Dana Carey perform in San Francisco in the summer of '85. That was the original Church Lady comedy club set, which carried a thoroughly different punch from the way it was recreated for SNL after Carvey arrived there.)

We thought Jost was good in a very challenging assignment. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the New York Times offered this (perfectly reasonable) retrospective about the late Kenny DeForest, a little-known but highly regarded comedian who recently died very young:

What’s So Funny About a Dead Comedian?
Kenny DeForest was beloved among his fellow stand-ups. After his sudden death, they came together to grieve—and to confront comedy’s eternal question: Too soon?

As we noted over the weekend, the Times decided at some point to treat stand-up as an art form. That article approaches stand-up as a cultural phenomenon and as a lifestyle. 

We'll admit that the journalistic framework sketched by those headlines strikes us as a bit odd. That said, we'll renew our earlier request:

As the Times is presenting reports of that type, is there any reason why they can't report on the extremely strange comedy stylings which now drive a great deal of the work on the Fox News Channel?

That channel's termagant delivers jokes, every night, which are unmistakably misogyny-adjacent. Millions of people watch what he does. Should the Times be averting its gaze?

Jost was influenced by Tina Fey? Good for Colin Jost! Three cheers for Tina Fey!


57 comments:


  1. "We'll score this as his best joke"

    How is it a joke?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Forget exact wording, but I am an old man running against a six year old was on point and funny. Also too, no mention of Trump being too much of a shit soaked crying ass titty baby to attend these events.

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    2. Bob is so naive about Trump. He feels sorry for him. Poor, persecuted Trump. Now the big meanies are even drawing unflattering pictures of him. Cry me a fucking river.

      Meanwhile Trump wanted to execute someone for embarrassing him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_wzga6iPZo

      During the pandemic, Trump wanted to withhold ventilators from states whose leaders criticized his response to the pandemic. Remember that? Trump did so many disgusting, inhuman things during such a short period of time, people don't even remember half of them.

      Bob takes the "bleeding heart liberal" thing to absurd, eye-rolling extremes. I think it allows him to accomplish two things at once: virtue signaling and trolling.

      Reminds me of a story about a bleeding heart liberal politician (or judge?) who felt sorry for an imprisoned murderer. So he secured his release and the guy immediately went out and committed some horrific crime. Don't assume that whatever goodness you have in your own heart is a universal trait shared by all 8 billion people on the planet.

      As the song says: "some people ain't no damn good. You can't love 'em, you can't trust 'em -- no good deed goes unpunished."

      Delete
  2. Staten Island is coextensive with Richmond County.

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  3. Some male comedians say women aren’t funny. I say women are funny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Males are too emotional to be funny.

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    2. Males are big and hairy.

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    3. Some are but others are not.

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    4. "Males are big and hairy."

      Not in China.

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  4. Somerby wants there to be no mistaking, he is a Trump defender, Trump's white knight.

    The joke is that he claims he will be voting for Biden.

    Har, har, har.

    Brother, please.

    Somerby's earlier post today was an attempt to make clear that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of polls and human nature.

    Ok Somerby, thanks for elucidating why you have lost what little influence you ever had on American discourse.

    TDH is not just a vanity blog, it is a case study of someone coping with their loss of integrity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Somerby lost that influence by not being completely one-sided.

      That doesn’t fly anywhere with the political class nowadays.

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    2. I miss the days when Somerby didn't "both sides" Presidential nominees who are rapists.

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    3. Anonymouse 3:24pm, on the contrary, you sorely miss the days when he sided solely against women with complaints as to Bill.

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    4. Russia, if you're listening, remind the Republican Party they've nominated a self-professed sexual predator to be their President three times in a row.

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    5. Anonymouse 3:33pm, Russia, if you’re listening, tell Tara Reade that Democrats say it was nothing personal. .

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    6. Tara Reade has no more connection to Russia than any Republican Congressperson.

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    7. Good comeback Cecelia. https://time.com/5058646/donald-trump-accusers/

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    8. Not only is he coping with his loss of integrity, waning influence and fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, he also questions why the New York Times doesn't report on the comedy stylings on Fox News, which he considers misogynistic.

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    9. Middle aged men who use their power as bosses or wealthy men to coerce sex out of teen girls are misogynistic.

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    10. Biden's popularity is surging. Americans are feeling positive about President Biden how Bidenomics has positively impacted their lives.

      The feeling is palpable.

      Delete
  5. Jerry Seinfeld says liberals killed comedy.
    Jerry Seinfeld Says TV Comedy Is Being Killed By the ‘Extreme Left and P.C. Crap and People Worrying So Much About Offending Other People’
    https://variety.com/2024/film/news/jerry-seinfeld-pc-culture-extreme-left-ruining-tv-comedy-1235985325/

    When I was young, the best political comedians were liberals. Reagan's famous quote applies to me
    “I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn’t leave the Republican Party. I never joined it.

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    2. God is a figment of dim-witted imaginations.

      Delete
    3. 2:44,
      That joke is funny, because it's true.

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. Anonymouse 2:44pm, especially if they’re Muslims

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    6. Muslims, Christians, Jews, the entire pile of nonsense.

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    7. Pagans are good, though.

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    8. Anonymouse 3:38pm, Sure. As though you’d say that about Biden’s Muslim voters.

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    9. Maybe, but it might be everyone else seems good when you are comparing them to religious folk.

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    10. Anonymouse 3:41pm, pagans are people too.

      Delete
    11. 3:44,
      Good people, I'm told.

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    12. 3:27,
      Is that you, Jerry?

      Delete
    13. Considering his of the charts of Jerry Seinfeld, has anyone associated him, ever, with pointed social or political
      commentary? The only bit I can remember him doing was about
      Halloween candy. He still sells out
      big venues but seems to crave the
      attention he got when he had a hit
      TV Show. Was he ever admonished
      in a serious way for anything he said?
      Seems to me he’s afraid of Democrats
      because his taxes might go up a
      little.

      Delete
    14. Off the charts success, that should be.

      Delete
    15. Caesar Augustus was a pagan.

      Delete
    16. Augustus Pablo was a Rasta.

      Delete
    17. When exactly was TV comedy not “pc?” Green Acres? MASH? Leave it to Beaver? What is Seinfeld talking about? Meanwhile, Gutfeld, Colbert, et al indulge in very irreverent humor.

      Delete
    18. Anonymouse 4:36pm, and he made a great salad.

      Delete
    19. Caesar Augustus was one of the most important people who ever lived.

      Delete
    20. If Seinfeld can't be funny without resorting to ethnic and racial stereotyping, then he might as well retire.

      Larry David made Seinfeld, and Larry David just completed the 12th season on HBO creating the funniest comedy series in memory.

      Take a guess, David. You think Larry David is a conservative, jackass?

      Delete
    21. Texas has a bad governor.

      Delete
    22. Anonymouse 7:21pm, no, none of silly brats in Austin voted for the governor.

      Delete
    23. True that. It was just the bigots who voted for the governor, of course.

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    24. Anonymouse 8:40pm, rather than the antisemitic bigots who are terrorizing Jews on campus.

      Delete
    25. Cheers, Mash, Mary Tyler Moore and All in the Family, according to Jerry Seinfeld, would not be aired on TV today because of the extreme left wing. What rubbish. Jerry, whose most recent contribution to the American discourse is a movie about Pop Tarts. Really going out on a controversial limb there. Maybe Jerry needs to have a talk with Larry David about how to do the controversial thing, because he's done it every week for 12 years, as noted above, not Jerry. Great career and very funny but controversial, never.

      As far as the Democratic party leaving Ronald Reagan, maybe talk with David Brooks, George Will, and many others about their current relationships with the abomination known as the 21st century Republican party.

      Delete
    26. 9:44,
      Do you conflate being arrested with being terrorized?

      https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4626720-were-jewish-students-at-columbia-arrested-for-protesting-israels-war/

      Delete
  6. Bob always breaks down this dubious
    dinner ( hey, it is for charity) and it’s about
    as meaningful as the various boring
    takes on the Oscars. That is, not
    at all. Biden’s stinging line about
    Trump was of course the evenings
    bell ringer, but only because of its
    cruel, stinging truth. But, we read
    Bob being hopeless on that subject
    almost five times a week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trump has a significant lead among those who do not follow political news. (Biden holds an 11-point lead among traditional news consumers.)

      Delete
  7. Hunter Biden is going to sue Fox News.

    ReplyDelete
  8. A heart-warming animal story:

    https://jabberwocking.com/miracle-cat-shipped-to-california-and-survives/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Spoiler alert:
      The cat wasn't Kristi Noem's.

      Delete
  9. From Abby Higgs —

    Doctor: your body has run out of magnesium

    Me: 0mg

    ReplyDelete
  10. Republican district attorney drives 20 mph over the limit, refuses to pull over, insults the cop:

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/ny-da-berates-police-officer-ignores-commands-during-traffic-stop-i-dont-really-care.amp

    ReplyDelete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete