Not that I want to beat a slowly-dying horse, but NBC’s Studio 60 continues its streak of suckage. In the bizarro world of Aaron Sorkin, where a fifth network exists with apparently only one show — exactly like Saturday Night Live, but even less funny– the public’s sense of humor is shall we say, not too well developed. See, the premise of the latest episode (“The West Coast Delay”) is that there’s this supposed fresh material, so good it gets “The Room” of 16 comedy writers to crack up, and makes it on the air. Only problem is it’s hacked. (That’s comedyspeak for plagiarized.)
Here’s the complete “bit”:
At schools today all the kids are diagnosed with stuff like dyslexia, hyperlexia, ADD, ADHD… in my day you were just stupid. What’s wrong with my son? Oh him, he’s just stupid. Next!
America’s the most overweight nation in the world. We’ve got so much food here, we drop it on people along with bombs. If you really want to mess with somebody’s head, drop a cruise missile and a couple of tons of Hot Pockets on their ass!
(artificial laughter ensues.)
Um, wow, the comedy never stops.
Worst part? As if we weren’t tortured enough by it initially, we get to listen to the lamest joke ever three-and-a-half times… and it keeps getting unfunnier!
The storyline appears to be based on an actual event: Jay Mohr’s hack of another comedian’s material back when he was on SNL. Mohr revealed the story in his book Gasping for Airtime — but in that case, he lied about it at the time, and NBC had to duke it out in court.
That joke was so generic that I felt I had heard it even before I heard it the first time. If that’s possible.
But as to your initial claim? You know, that you hate to beat a slowly-dying horse? Um, liar.
And someone told me they weren’t going to read my mean spoilery posts about S60OTSS?
To further validate your claims (both about the “joke” and my horse-beating): the sum of the material was that calling a child “stupid” is somehow a clever punchline. Maybe in gradeschool. All I could think about: “Is making fun of kids with learning disabilities the best Sorkin could come up with?”