Unfunny Things
A collection of pretentious things from the web and elsewhere that are much less funny than they think they are.
Aug 14th, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me
This NPR radio show is a a funny thing, in the sense that it seems like it’s from another time. Best described as the “dad joke” of political satire, it gathers together a few has-been comics with a raucous audience and subjects various callers to a basic news quiz.
The problem with “Wait Wait” is not that the comics are particularly proud of themselves (though they are sometimes) but rather that the jokes are—in a word—safe. The whole show, including its format and hosts, feels like it was transplanted from the mid-90s, where chortles and guffaws were invited by any mention whatsoever of “sexual relations… with that woman”. These days they might find it equally wild for a panelist to appropriate the idea of “hiking the Appalachian trail”, but it remains my firm opinion that you have to be old and humourless to find this amusing.
Via NPR.org
