It's just so damned funny to parody the 97% of scientists who have demonstrated global climate change is absolutely a FACT and is accelerating at dangerous rates. Simply hilarious, if you ask a subpar audience of conservatives in desperate need of a brand of "funny" that doesn't make fun of their side.
What better way to make spoon-fed Fox News viewers crack up than maligning the hard work of people who have dedicated their lives to preventing more Sandys and Katrinas? Mocking the poorest among us who are usually the ones hit hardest by these catastrophic weather events is just side-splitting fun! The clip features his routine, with an Al Gore impersonation. Gore can't be trusted because he lives in a mansion and if that's not a knee slapper, I don't know what is!
Meet Michael Loftus, the writer and comedian who writes for Charlie Sheen’s latest series on FX, Anger Management, and says it’s a pleasure working with the much-maligned former star of Two and a Half Men. Charlie is such a revered comedian.
“He comes in and crushes it,” Loftus says.
Loftus' new show, called The Flipside, is a pitiful attempt at creating a right wing "Daily Show." It was hard to locate the channel where I could watch the show; in Las Vegas it can be seen on Bullhead City, Arizona's KLBC. I've never heard of it.
Remember Fox's 1/2 Hour News Hour? Of course you probably never heard of that one either. The show debuted in 2007 and was cancelled within six months. Murdoch touted the show as the Republican Daily Show. The Flipside can only hope Fox News picks up the show and airs it after one of their prime time stars, like "We'll Do It Live" Bill O'Reilly.
Why doesn't conservative humor delight and amuse a more cerebral crowd? Perhaps it's the nature of what they find funny. Laughing at the misfortunes or imperfections of people who, unlike your typical Republican, are largely trying to help the underdog, the maligned and the mistreated, is just not funny. Their mean-spirited brand of humor is obvious, trite and mired with clichés. Since legislating to protect us from climate change will upset the apple cart at Koch Industries, we should call the science "lies," because that erases the lying science community's dire predictions.
The right being outraged over the typically liberal, much more successful brand of comedy is nothing new. They have long been angry at jokes they don’t agree with and the people who tell them. Dean Obeidallah at The Daily Beast hypothesizes that their ideology stands in the way:
My theory is that comedy inherently challenges the status quo and the right generally tries to preserve that... Comedian Frank Coniff, however, best known as "TV's Frank" from Mystery Science Theater, said: "The best comedy is always on the side of the underdog, and conservatives are on the side the powerful."
Comedians who are right wing tend to fade away pretty quickly. The only "right wing" satirists who make us laugh tend to impersonate a conservative character, like Stephen Colbert does on Comedy Central. If you need to tell everyone how edgy and funny you are, Mr. Loftus, chances are, you will be missing your mark. Saturday Night Live alumni who have gone to the dark side, like Victoria Jackson, Dennis Miller and Adam Sandler are only worthy of the same canned laughter as The Flipside.
