The morning after Fox News premiered in the late night comedy space, comedian Ron Funches summed up the overall reaction with tweeting: “Gutfield is being renewed by comedians who don’t like to watch alone.”
Greg Gutfeld – long-time co-host of Fox News’ The five known for his edgy commentary such as downplaying the costs of war, rejecting blatant racism and unabashedly sucking in Donald Trump – premiered Monday night with a new show at 11pm Gutfeld! His title is reminiscent of Jeb Bush’s failed presidential campaign and the logo design is directly similar to the Garfield comics, such as comedian Tim Heidecker marked prior to the broadcast.
“I’m as dizzy as Kamala Harris explaining children in cages,” Gutfeld told viewers at the top of the show. “Or Woody Allen hearing about children in cages.” From there, he presented bizarre “ parodies ” of MSNBC’s Brian Williams reporting “ from the surface of Mars ” (referring to a six-year-old media scandal, how timely) and a mismanaged mock CNN panel in which two whites each accused. others are racist.
Considering that Gutfeld used his opening monologue to attack the great hosts late at night that he should “ fight ” against, he accused Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon of being essentially risk averse, crawling baby crying and joking “That Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers” ran away to be obscure together, “we decided to ask some real comedians to criticize his” comedy “attempts.
Notably absent from the late-night hosts on Gutfeld’s shitlist was HBO’s Bill Maher, perhaps because the derisive “ New Rules ” tirades every episode of Real time seem to be his greatest inspiration.
Former Daily show producer – and current Oscar nominee for writing Borat Later film film—Jena Friedman immediately recognized the similarities and told The Daily Beast, “It’s like seeing a man divorce making an impression of Bill Maher,” adding, “His Bill Maher impression isn’t bad!”
“He reminds me of the boss whose jokes you have to laugh at,” she continued. “I didn’t think it was bad for someone who’s never done a comedy … just a little bit bitter and angry.”
“Just because something has the cadence of a joke doesn’t make it a joke,” he said Nightly show added writer Sasha Stewart, before also referring to the lukewarm laughter that could be heard in the background. “I’m sorry for the five staff members who make up the laugh track. I know they’re staffers because it’s the kind of sharp, haunted laugh of someone who barely gets paid enough to be there. “
Conan writer Laurie Kilmartin was reluctant to directly criticize the “contest”, but she tweeted this “promo” for the show before it aired:
And Blaire Erskine, best known for her MAGA mocking Twitter videos, had a lot of questions in particular. “Why does he call himself ‘GG’ like he’s someone’s grandmother?” she wondered. Why do I feel like he’s reading his opening manifesto from the teleprompter for the first time? More importantly, why is he holding a clipboard with what looks like a stack of empty file folders with his hand? “
Former White House speech writer Jon Lovett, who wrote some of Barack Obama’s best White House Correspondents’ Dinner jokes and delivers his own version of a late-night-style monologue every week on his podcast Lovett or leave it, found some humor in Gutfeld’s claim that he was doing something “different” from any other primetime Fox show.
“I like a monologue about being brave enough to cancel the culture. FINALLY someone is willing to say whatever was said at 8, 9 and 10 at 11am. Greg won’t shut up! Lovett told us. “The whole thing is pretty embarrassing. Fox News sucks.” But then he added for the record, “I approve of all Woody Allen jokes.”
Anthony Atamanuik, from The president show fame, was similarly baffled by the anti-corporatist tirade that occupied the second half of Gutfeld’s monologue. “It was a confused wander with five-year-old reference jokes woven into a toothless meandering ‘stand’ against social media and corporations that ended in a powerless humorless sputter of self-righteousness,” he said.
Others were less willing to give Gutfeld the time of day. Reached out for comment, former Nightly show host Larry Wilmore replied in two words, “No thanks.”
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