Some time ago I wrote a blog about Keith Olbermann’s show and why I preferred it over all of the other news shows on both the Big 3 and cable news. I still grab a beer and my puppy and hit the couch at 5 PM PDT to check out his daily show. In fact, I often watch nothing before or after, but whenever I have to miss his show it’s like going a day without brushing my teeth. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
However, I am not 100% happy with Keith. For one thing he has been gone from HIS show way too many times in recent weeks. His female replacement is just fine, very articulate and very, very attractive. But she is not Keith. She does not have his eyebrows, his hairline, or his sense of humor. When she throws paper, glass does not break.
It’s hard to find humor within daily news of our soldiers being blown up, innocent Iraqis, Israelis, Palestinians, and Afghanis being killed ruthlessly and almost at random. But Keith fnds humor in just about everything else. He manages to find clips of our beloved President stumbling over his tongue and loosing his train of thought almost daily. He locates contradictory statements from practically every candidate running for President – all of them telling us “trust me” and “support honesty in government” while lying and obfuscating the facts at every opportunity.
So I love the news and Keith’s humor. His stand-ins must have different writers, because even though they are reading off the same teleprompters, the replacements are never as funny. But his guests that are supposed to be funny? Rarely do any of them come up with something truly humorous or provide incisive comments that will bring a smile to my face.
I find Michael Musto, Mo Rocca, and Paul F. Tompkins particularly unfunny and grating. Keith’s writers give him a series of setup lines that should generate at least some funny responses, but most of the retorts by entertainment reporters Musto and Tompkins tend to have unpleasant sexual or gay overtones, and for the most part simply fall flat. Keith gives an obligatory chuckle and then goes on to deliver the next setup line. Keith – terminate these guys and any others like them now! Please!
On the political side, Craig Crawford is a knowledgeable commentator, but seems to want to deliver every line like it was an aside. Craig acts like he wants to be funny, but he’s not. I’ll give him a break because he is right in the middle of the political mix and seems to understand the particulars of Washington personalities and processes.
I have similar feelings about Dana Milbank, although he does not go out of his way to be humorous. My favorites are John Dean and some of the ex-military officers that appear regularly on the show. They pretty much tell it like it is and their humor tends to be natural, not forced.
So Keith – don’t be like Abbott to your guests’ Costello. Don’t be Martin to their Lewis. Costello and Lewis forced their humor too, but we were all a lot younger and more naive in those days. We knew that we were supposed to laugh at everything the “funny guy” said or did – so we did. But not any more. We’ve grown up.
Just be yourself and let your own humor (or your writers’) flow naturally. Yours is a news show, and some of your comments are based on your view of the absurd. But it is not standup comedy. Let it be what it is and you should do what you do. We’ll all be better off that way and I’ll enjoy your show a lot more.
PDF 
Comments from Readers