The Nightly Show: Season One Talk

[possibilities]

Actually, I think the conversation is raising a broader question for me, of: what to do with places that have been the sites of major atrocities? Do we turn them all into museums? Level them to rubble and completely start over? Can they be redeemed? Certainly there are places that are past redemption. When they are numerous and cover a large area, what is the best response?

[SomeTameGazelle]

Larry's handling of the whooshing in the Gettysburg Address was a distillation of why I don't think I can ever really love him. It was just a brief moment in the segment about the NFL female coach/intern story . . . but the thing is when he said "There were only three whooshes in the whole Gettysburg Address" I thought it was hilarious; when they quickly played 3 whooshes over an image of Lincoln I thought "Colbert would have done it better -- he would have actually recited some of it with the whooshes at specific points"; and then the very next thing that happened was Larry expressed surprise that anyone had laughed at a joke that didn't make any sense. Oh, Larry.

[SomeTameGazelle]

While I like the sentiment of Larry's "non-consensual sex has never been a widely accepted practice" joke, it's entirely not true. Happily our trend has long been to learn more about the definition of consent. Cosby's defense is correct when he says back then that kind of shit was considered okay. It was accepted enough that Cosby could make jokes about it and have a reputation of being a "clean" comedian.

 

 

Larry was badly wrong historically here. It helps when you are reading ancient sources to realise that the definition of consent had to do with whether the man whose property the woman was consented. The so-called Rape of Helen (of Troy)? Helen ran off with Paris willingly, but because her husband Menelaus didn't consent, that was rape. Exodus 22:16-17? It's the father's consent that matters. It's entirely irrelevant whether the daughter was willing. That's why until comparatively recently we still had laws that assumed that a husband could not rape a wife. His consent was all that mattered.

 

Good too see Sally Kohn here, too. She's great. Too bad about Quinn. He made that segment feel like ti ran for a half-hour by itself.

 

 

On the one hand I loved the expression on her face as she watched Colin Quinn speak. On the other I wish we could have heard her articulating her thoughts about his point as well.

 

(Added italics for clarity.)

Edited August 4, 2015 by SomeTameGazelle

[trow125]

Agreed but what happened to Shanaz Treasury? Did Holly replace her or have I just missed her since I tend to blow past the panels?

I was wondering that myself a couple weeks ago. Shenaz's name no longer appears in the credits (she had been listed as a contributor, along with Mike Yard and Ricky Velez), so I guess she's gone. I never thought she was a very good panelist so I can't say I miss her.

I believe Holly Walker, like Robin Thede, is a writer for the show as well as an occasional on-camera personality.

[attica]

If I were Holly, I just might make the eyepatch part of daily wardrobe. It's the best.

[Victor the Crab]

I'd imagine Bernie Sanders' Kool-Aid drinking fanatics would have a big fat cow over Larry's description of Hillary Clinton's reaction of Joe Biden's maybe entering the Democratic nomination.

[GHScorpiosRule]

No lie. I totally squeed "Charles!!!" when I saw Deon Cole on the panel.

 

Interesting that instead of saying he's from Black-ish, he's credited as starring in Barbershop 3.

 

That's all I got from last night's show.

[ganesh]

The panel really didn't tackle anything interesting last night, but those ladies were *funny*. Even Mike was cracking up at them. "You're yelling at America. I need you to know." I may actually have to watch their show.

[attica]

As a woman of A Certain Age, I am the exception that proves the rule re: office temperatures. My space is at least 5 degrees colder than the rest of the place. I haven't been cold in two years. And I've now shifted from the 'hot flashes' part of the experience to the 'hot flashes combined with a constant headache and surprising bursts of nausea' section. So much fun.  Fuck menopause.

[Victor the Crab]

Larry obviously had braces in his youth.

[attica]

Who knew Ricky Velez was such a teenage temptress? Gracious!

[Kromm]

This show has improved enough that it's easy now to say it's the highlight of the night, whereas I suspect I'm going to struggle to get through episodes of The Treveor Noah Show. 

 

We shall see.

[Victor the Crab]

It's still hit and miss for me. Better than when it started, but still has inconsistencies. Still don't like the panel part.

[khyber]

After the first week I bailed. Now that Jon's not on anymore maybe I'll give it another try. I didn't care for the panel but I suppose I could always focus on the other stuff.

[LADreamr]

The first segment has improved a lot- stronger writing and better focus. And the Pee Wee Herman reference last night was brilliant. The show can still improve, but it has come a long way since the premiere. I gave up on it for a while because it was disappointing in the beginning, but I do like it now. Especially because of his passion over the Cosby situation. I think that may have been a turning point for him.

[The Luvly Junkie]

        It was pretty eminent that once TDS ended I desperately needed cathartic humor to suppress my rage over Trump, and watching last night's coverage of Trump did not disappoint. Even the panel- it's hit or miss for me, but I enjoyed the panel (and Chris Gethard, cuz I love TCGS) this time. Good that Larry is stepping up his game by a notch and I hope he will cover the 1-year anniversary hijinks of Ferguson for the next episode.

[ganesh]

The show is clearly at its best when it's tackling racial issues like Cosby or black fathers, or minority rights like transgender.

 

I'm not defending Trump because he's a bully and a blowhard, but I don't think he was implying that Kelly was on her period. I do think the network had an agenda in singling him out with specific questions to bait him, and he should have anticipated that. 

 

I'm kind of over the "this is what Trump said," pieces. Focusing on something about how long it took to talk about race versus cooking the pop tart is much more creative and funny, and really more in this show's wheelhouse. 

[Wax Lion]

Whenever I see a clip from Outnumbered, I read their dumb logo as OutHashtag. The fact that I don't expect Fox to know how the internet works only encourages that.

[attica]

I read their dumb logo as OutHashtag

 

Or even OutPound!

[revbfc]

When this show is on its game, it is brilliant. Problem is that it is still inconsistent. It's either amazing or a total failure. I'm not saying the days are numbered for this show, but Trevor Noah has no room for error now.

Edited August 13, 2015 by revbfc

[nowandlater]

I don't know if it's the correspondents I have a problem with, or its the interviews with the correspondents.

 

The Daily Show did it so much better, obviously.

[ganesh]

That know it all sitting on the right last night needs to check himself. Guys don't want girls playing their video games, cf. gamergate. 

[LADreamr]

Yeah, I don't know what gamer world he lives in, but girls who dare to be there are subjected to all kinds of crap. Not all the guys are like that; it's mostly the guys who suck at the game and are threatened by a girl who's better. But it's definitely still prominent.

[Hooper]

 

That know it all sitting on the right last night needs to check himself. Guys don't want girls playing their video games, cf. gamergate.

 

That dude was just flat out wrong all over the place.  He started out saying that the signage doesn't matter because kids don't care how the toy aisles are labeled, but speaking authoritatively as a former kid, it does matter.  It's been many long years ago, but I clearly remember being turned loose in the department store to amuse myself while my mother did all the grocery shopping and household errands on our weekly trips to town.  I'd trudge through the aisles of "girls" toys, looking at stuff like Easy-Bake Ovens (by the time I was in fourth grade I was a better cook than most adults) and thoroughly boring dolls, and peer longingly over at the aisle of "boys" toys.  If I was pretty sure no one was paying attention, I'd slip over to try on a baseball glove or gaze in wonder at model airplanes and ohmygod! chemistry sets, but I absolutely knew that I wasn't supposed to be there.  Sure, there was a lot more going on in society than just the sign at the front of the aisle telling me that girls liking sports and science and building stuff was "abnormal", but those signs were telling me I didn't belong in that aisle, and I felt embarrassed to be there, and I would never have dared to ask for anything from the "boys" section for a birthday or xmas gift, even though my parents were relatively tolerant of my tomboy interests.  I rarely go into super stores, so I had no idea toy aisles and entertainment aisles were still labelled by gender until I saw the segment on TNS last night.  By the time the dude got to the point of saying that toy preference is biological I had to leave the room to keep from throwing a (very dainty and feminine) socket wrench at the TV.

 

Please, please, please tell me high school libraries don't still have reference books titled "Careers for Boys" and "Careers for Girls".

[ganesh]

He was making a nerd joke from something like the 90s that was in no way indicative to what real life gaming is like. The entire gaming issue is totally separate from the Target issue which was aimed what I think was young kids' toys. Trucks, dolls, GI Joes, stuff like that. Video games aren't part of this issue because there aren't video games in a boys section and a girls section, from what I know.

 

That guy was flat out ignorant. This is the problem with having guests on that just want to do 3 minutes of new material. Don't have those people on, Larry. It makes the show suck. Female gamers have literally been threatened with rape. It's been a huge huge huge huge issue, not only with the gaming community, but it's been serious enough that PBS News covered it. Relegating that to a stale joke is callous, and Larry should have shut it down and focused on what he introduced.

 

The woman was right when she made her joke; maybe if girls get to do engineering projects when they're young, then they can put together furniture.

 

And seriously, ripping on engineering? Come at me, you jerks. You wish you were in engineering. 

[LADreamr]

I feel like the problem with a lot of girls and these gender assignments is that they are so concerned about what they think it will say about them if they are good at "boy" things. Like they need to be seen a certain way by men, and their being competent at things like that would alienate them. I'm a counselor and run into this with women all the time. It's just so dangerous and sad. You can be smart and capable and still feminine (whatever that really means), but that's not the message that's out there, and young girls are still affected.

[possibilities]

Boys also suffer from being perceived as having girl tastes and interests. The boy who wants to play with dolls is in for a lot of heartache.

 

It's hard for me to take seriously that Alonzo really thinks this kind of pressure has no impact on kids. Either he's a total dimwit or he was trolling; either way, I wished he'd shut up and let the more lucid people talk.

[Wax Lion]

I liked Alonzo as a comedian from Last Comic Standing but he really needed to STFU. Yeah, if you let a boy run wild in the toy store he won't consciously skip the Barbie aisle.

 

And the jokes about engineering toys. Yeah, kids hate legos, lincoln logs and tinker toys. Then again, I'm not sure if I've seen tinker toys recently though there are always some new kid kind of building toy. Admittedly, I basically used building toys to make up that no one would buy me some Ken dolls.

 

Larry summed it all up with that "I learned nothing from this panel."
 

When this show is on its game, it is brilliant. Problem is that it is still inconsistent. It's either amazing or a total failure. I'm not saying the days are numbered for this show, but Trevor Noah has no room for error now.

 

Talk shows are a slow moving ship, it takes a while to build an audience so I think TDS and TNS will be allowed to have lower ratings for a while, especially if @Midnight's ratings don't drop. (It'll be a bigger problem if it looks like the new lineup are dragging down @Midnight with a bad lead-in.) Amy Schumer talked about the Daily Show job like it would be guaranteed steady work for five years. Craig Kilborne's Late Late Show run was for five years and Snyder lasted four before him so maybe that's a standard trial period?

[attica]

It kept annoying me that Larry mocked Jeb by pronouncing it 'Yeb'.  You're from California! You should know it's "Heb!" (Although why pitcher Johan Santana doesn't pronounce it 'Hohan', I cannot tell you. It's a mystery.)

 

The Ken doll I had as a kid did not have those abs. Not even close. I don't remember him even having pecs. Just vaguely molded musculature. It should be said I am old, so take that for what it's worth.

 

The lady in the field piece that put her foot down about Time Warner Cable won the night.

[ChelseaNH]

That dude was just flat out wrong all over the place.

 

Classic example of privilege in action.  "I have no direct experience with this, nor have I spoken to any little girls, but I will state authoritatively that this problem doesn't exist, because I have never experienced it."

 

maybe if girls get to do engineering projects when they're young, then they can put together furniture.

 

I didn't do any engineering projects when I was young, and I can put together furniture just fine.  (Of course, I grew up to be a software engineer, but it wasn't something on my radar until college.)  But yeah, the less you tell girls they can't do things, the more things they can do.

[Muffyn]

Just caught the episode on Netflix offering one year of paid maternity leave.  The woman from notsoskinnymom needs to shut up and go away.  Wow.  She totally dismissed the idea of the role of fathers in parenting.  She is simply not funny yet she kept expecting to hear laughter.  

[ThomasAAnderson]

After the segment on Black Lives Matter in which he mocked #SayHerName I'm out. Larry doesn't know that hashtag is a memorial to black women and women of color killed at the hands of police or domestic abuse. He has a BIG fucking budget he couldn't have researchers find that shit out. The look on his face when he made that joke I swear I wanted to punch the screen. 

 

Well that's it, I'm out..longing for the day when W Kamau Bell had a show.

[ZoqFotPik]

Well that's it, I'm out..longing for the day when W Kamau Bell had a show.

He has a show coming to CNN.

[ganesh]

The show really needs to do more in the field pieces. They've all been really good. 

 

The lady in the field piece that put her foot down about Time Warner Cable won the night.

Seriously. You can't write that better. Yard is good in the field; he's affable and people always open up to him. They really need more of this. 

[Wax Lion]

I guess this is going to be a hatewatch week. That panel was shit, it sounded like no one, not even Larry, read the article they were discussing and had strong opinions on the matter. I thought I was watching a dramatization of a reddit thread.

 

Someone tell Robin Theade mentioning something that happened on a TV show is not "quoting". Saying Peggy used to cry on Mad Men is not "quoting" it.

[ganesh]

This just isn't a topic that's a good fit for the show. They always do better with a non comedian in the group. I guess maybe they have trouble getting those people to come on the show. 

 

I would have rather they talked about why winning the Iowa caucus is supposed to be this big deal that puts you in the driver's seat when it's only like 2 delegates out of the 1100 needed and the demo clearly doesn't represent the country by far. 

[Victor the Crab]

Larry's impersonation of Trump was just piss poor.

[attica]

I have eaten a pork chop on a stick at the Iowa State Fair: so freaking tasty!

[Hanahope]

I know this was supposed to be about guns, but watching Penn mansplain and run roughshod over that panel was frustrating. "You know more than I do, but I'm just gonna keep talking."

 

Catching up on the shows from being on vacation.  When Penn said that overall crime has gone down over the last several decades and no one knows why, I wanted to shout, "I do!  I watched OINTB when Big Boo explained Freakonomics, that allowing poor women who didn't want/couldn't raise their children to have abortions, created the scenario where less unwanted children grew up to become criminals."

[shok]

^^^

 

I've read another theory too, that the crime rate started to go down when they took the lead out of leaded gas. The lead theoretically caused a lot of brain damage so you had a lot of young people who lacked the ability to discern right from wrong, much like fetal alcohol syndrome, and once lead was banned there were fewer mentally challenged people caught up in the justice system.

[ganesh]

That was a good piece on Clinton with the Black Lives Matter people. She kind of owned them. 

 

I don't know why that dude wore his bathing suit to the show though.

 

I don't think "all lives matter" is a "violent response." It's more ignorant than anything.

Edited August 19, 2015 by ganesh

[attica]

That Hillary clip was incredibly interesting to me. You don't often get to see her in Full Wonk mode, lawyering and politicking. I like her this way! I think she's a not-very-good campaigner, but I keep telling myself she'll do well once in office. This clip cemented that bias. Heh. (I still love Bernie, though. Moar soshulizm!)

[gesundheit]

I really liked last night's show, and it was about time (since they cover related topics so often) that they actually had some Black Lives Matter activists on the show. I'm so glad he gave them a full segment for a legit interview (too brief, but that's the format) instead of putting them on a panel with some loud comedian who doesn't have a clue. Speaking of which, what was with that one weirdo who seemed to think that they need to eliminate all crime among black people before they're even allowed to speak up about basic human rights? Yuck.

 

All that said, the "Yankee Stadium full of white people is just Yankee Stadium, amirite??" joke could only have been made by people who never go to Yankee Stadium. It's so far off it's insane. (Or maybe made by people who only sit behind the dugout in the $3K seats and never look around.)

[attica]

Speaking of which, what was with that one weirdo who seemed to think that they need to eliminate all crime among black people before they're even allowed to speak up about basic human rights? Yuck.

 

Yeah, no kidding, Yuck. Because white people are such paragons of virtue -- which is why they have All The Rights! Dipshit.

[ganesh]

That Clinton from the video clip would wipe the floor with any of the current candidates without breaking a sweat. Her problem is the emails and Benghazi aren't going away.

[Kromm]

That was a good piece on Clinton with the Black Lives Matter people. She kind of owned them. 

What was interesting (and maybe even a bit discouraging in terms of their mission) is that they didn't seem to realize that she did. She simply turned the discussion to the practical and it seemed to stymie them totally.

 

While we could laud Larry having them on, in a way they've been more effective at a bit of a distance. The attention they brought to race issues and how politicians don't have the guts to talk about them has been great. But folks in movements like this rarely to never have practical solutions to suggest (in terms of things like police training, budgeting, etc.), and when pressed on that it dulls their effectiveness.  Their one unassailable point has been "discuss it more". In other words, bring it up in debates. Discuss it in position papers. Get asked about it (and answer the questions) in interviews.  BLM needs to hammer home that one point, and hard.

[gesundheit]

What was interesting (and maybe even a bit discouraging in terms of their mission) is that they didn't seem to realize that she did. She simply turned the discussion to the practical and it seemed to stymie them totally.

I didn't find them to be stymied at all in the full video, but I do think the one man's preoccupation with getting her to admit she screwed up by championing her husband's legislation is an exercise in futility, and also very impractical in terms of actually accomplishing goals. When you have a leading presidential candidate admitting we need major policy change and that she's willing to listen to ideas of what might help fix it, I don't think focusing on "But admit your responsibility for the terrible state we're in!" is the logical next step. This isn't to say that HRC should be let off the hook in the present day for anything wrong-headed in her language or platform as it currently stands (and as it rolls out ahead), but I don't think change really happens by prioritizing accountability for past mistakes over holding feet to the fire for current mistakes. We can look at past patterns and wonder if someone can really be trusted based on those, of course, but that's not the same thing.

 

I was thrilled to hear they will not be excluding Trump from their activism. I was worried they wouldn't take him seriously enough to approach him, but he's currently the biggest platform in terms of the campaigns. More power to them!

[ganesh]

They're point though, telling Clinton that she should be telling them what to do is wrong, and she shredded that position really.

They need to put together a mission statement. Are they proposing legislation? Like demanding body cameras on cops. Or should they just be protesting in order to bring race as a serious issue into this campaign, which it should be.

You get access to Clinton and she's totally down to talk to you, but the best you come up with is tell us what to do? Wrong approach. Wasted opportunity. They should definitely keep at it though.

[Muffyn]

The panels on this show so often drive me crazy.  Yet there are occasionally people that appear that I would most likely not see anywhere else.  Christina Greer kicks ass.  Intelligent, eloquent and well-reasoned.  I want to hear more from her.  I also love the look on her face when Lil Duval was prattling on, blaming black people for their own deaths.  I really wish they would do a better job of getting panel members, rather than padding with people who have nothing to say.  Otherwise, skip the panel and do an interview with the knowledgeable person.  

[Kromm]

They're point though, telling Clinton that she should be telling them what to do is wrong, and she shredded that position really.

They need to put together a mission statement. Are they proposing legislation? Like demanding body cameras on cops. Or should they just be protesting in order to bring race as a serious issue into this campaign, which it should be.

You get access to Clinton and she's totally down to talk to you, but the best you come up with is tell us what to do? Wrong approach. Wasted opportunity. They should definitely keep at it though.

Yeah, this is a better way to say what I tried to. The problem is that a lot of these social justice groups are short of practical ideas. Occupy Wall Street was this way too. 

 

And it's not that they don't have a right to protest in that vague "we're just upset!" manner. But if you try and hold INDIVIDUAL people responsible for a mess, it requires something more substantiative than "say you were wrong!" and "you'd better come up with an answer for us!" If you don't seem to have a plan of attack other than "take them down", it starts to come off as simply an appeal for anarchy. It's also terribly transparently hypocritical to indict someone for supposedly doing the wrong thing when you can't even elaborate to them what the right thing (or at least the BETTER thing) is.  Facing that is growing up. It's when you stop being a rabble-rouser and start being a real movement. 

 

That's why I also said they're best sticking to a simple mantra/goal--"we want to hear this discussed in the media and by politicians more". At least then your goals are simple, and an indication of progress is simple as well.