We’re in the throes of the fall TV season, but the generally underwhelming slate of new shows have been getting upstaged by what’s been happening in the news cycle and the late-night comedy world.
Just when we think the juxtaposition of real-world news and sarcastic jokes can’t get any more surreal, we get President Donald Trump taking to Twitter to attack late-night comedy hosts, and a late-night comedy host weighing in on health care policy.
And just to add to the clamor, some new talk shows have premiered in recent weeks. To help you sort through it all, here’s a round-up of recent collisions between TV, talk, comedy and politics.
When comedians influence policy, and presidents critique comedy: Viewers of late-night comedy shows have known for more than a year that the hosts are showing renewed glee in making fun of the government. That’s par for the course — political jokes have been a staple of comedy shows pretty much since the “Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live” began, decades ago.
But the presidential race between Trump and Hillary Clinton ushered in a new era, heightened by the presence of a candidate who rose to national prominence thanks to a reality show.
Since Trump’s win, jokes at his expense have become a late-night comedy show fixture, as omnipresent as celebrities promoting their new movies and TV series.
But in a twist any reality-show producer would relish, lately, the roles have reversed, with late-night hosts issuing passionate declarations about government policy, and the president mocking the hosts.
As Trump put it in an Oct. 7 post on his busy Twitter account:
“Late Night host (sic) are dealing with the Democrats for their very ‘unfunny’ & repetitive material, always anti-Trump! Should we get Equal Time?”
A few minutes later, Trump added:
“More and more people are suggesting that Republicans (and me) should be given Equal Time on T.V. when you look at the one-sided coverage?”
“Excellent point Mr. President! You should quit that boring job — I’ll let you have my show ALL to yourself. #MAGA.”
More controversy erupted this week, with conservatives attacking late-night hosts for failing to make enough jokes about Harvey Weinstein.
In case you’re keeping score at home, some conservatives who thought Jimmy Kimmel was out of line for diving into politics then turned around and blasted Kimmel for not being political enough.
Kimmel’s offense? Not taking sufficiently pointed comic aim at Weinstein, the Hollywood executive in the news after New York Times and The New Yorker investigative reports on Weinstein’s alleged, and appalling, history of sexual assault and harassment of women. Weinstein also happens to have been a prominent donor to Democratic candidates and causes.
As an example of the…
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