Friday, July 23, 2004

Franken More Boring Than Baseball

Entertainment

So there was a Red Sox game on the radio the other day, which means I had no Howie Carr to listen to on the drive home.  The only thing more mind-numbingly boring than watching baseball on television is hearing it on the radio.  My back up in such instances is to listen to Sean Hannity, who I can stomach in small doses, until he mentions God one time too many or plays an awful song and it sets my teeth on edge, and it’s about that time in the drive that I lose reception anyway.

But this time was different.  I switched over to hear Hannity, and found the same baseball game on THAT station (grrrrr).  I started scanning, and found that a local station was broadcasting the Al Franken Show.  Last I knew no one in the area had it, so I was surprised.  And I listened for about 40 minutes.

I was shocked to hear something more boring than baseball.

First of all, the woman Franken’s with comes across like a total bonehead.  Not quite as annoying as more famous insufferable sidekick Robin Quivers, but not half as entertaining either.  But more importantly, Franken had no chops.  He had the “Bush lied!” bit down, but that’s hardly original, or even interesting.  The focus of the segment I heard was alot of tape from Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, taken (presumably) from recent shows.  He was trying to refute specific things each had said or claimed.  You might think that would be worthwhile to hear, you know, refuting the haters point by point, but it wasn’t. 

Franken was the sonic equivalent to the old Saturday morning PSAs about reading and pollution and crying Indians.  Sounds like it should have something behind it, but it’s just more background noise.  I should care about it, but its sandwiched between cartoons so how serious can it be?  Franken is sandwiched between other hippy-friendly programming, so how seriously can I take him?

I think Al missed the point of this whole thing.  People respond to right wing bombastic broadcasting because it’s entertaining.  Not for the insight into politics listeners get, but for the entertainment they get.  Franken went into this equal parts debate team captain and “Bu$h Lied” giant puppet head driver, and it fell completely flat for me. 

I’d expected more from a comedy writer. 


Posted by on 07/23/04 at 05:44 PM
Entertainment • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink