NBC displays respect for comedians
Reads the headline in a fantasy world.
Witness the illustration on the front page of the NBC website (above). It’s a “comic” from Australia. We suppose that a still of a white male or female dressed normally (which, we suppose would be the vast majority of the folks auditioning) is a real yawn, so the dress-ups and the screamers and the scary-haired ones make it into the website thumbnails for the video samples. And into the trailers.
“Sydney Auditions- Oz’s Shining Star” reads the title of one video. The subtitle reads, “The only funny man in Australia?” So… they’ve managed to diss an entire continent’s comedians. Nice! (We suppose they have a twist. It’ll probably come out that they’re only being provocative, but it’s rather unnerving that they feel they have to go that route.)
In the main trailer, Bill Bellamy briefly interviews an auditioner, a female. It is discovered that it’s her first time doing standup. Why she was included in the trailer is mysterious.
In the comments under the trailer, some folks weigh in on the rookie, with one, Casey R., who says, “Her name is Jamie Greenberg and she was seriously the most insane person I have ever met. One time she was drunk in the dining hall and got up on the table and screamed out ‘eat my ____'”
NBC undoubtedly has good lawyers.
We suppose one of the main things we’ll be keeping an eye on is how this circus– the promotion of the show, the show itself, the commentary, the website– reflects on standup comics and live comedy in general. So far, it’s… less than positive.
3 Responses
Reply to: NBC displays respect for comedians
People want to see a trainwreck. And as disturbing as some of this is, I don’t see any difference between the promotion of LCS and the promotion of any other competition/talent show. Promos for American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and even that inventors show… it’s 90% the duds, with just enough of the legit artists included to hint that there is *some* talent included. I would hope most people are smart enough to know that good comedians are funny, the same way that good singers can sing.
I agree with Sharilyn. And this is supposed to be a site about comedy…can’t you see the irony in what NBC is doing? If no one watches, clubs suffer, comics lose and then what? Get over yourselves…Shecky has jumped the shark!
ANT said:“Can’t you see the irony in what NBC is doing? If no one watches, clubs suffer, comics lose and then what?”To which we reply:There is no irony whatsoever in the NBC treatment of standup regarding their promotion of LCS. Haven’t you been reading this magazine? We’ve cited one example after another– over the last eight years– of the press displaying, rather unashamedly and with zero irony, a distaste for/disdain of/out and out hatred of standup comics and standup comedy in general.It’s not our imagination; we’re not “reading between the lines.” This ridiculous campaign by NBC is business as usual. They’re portraying standup comics as buffoons because it’s the only way they know how to offer comics to the public. They are simultaneously reinforcing the low opinion of standup comics that some of their audience has (Mission accomplished!) and continuing on a misguided campaign to tarnish the rep of comics among those who are undecided.Irony? Puh-leeze! We’re talking about television here. Television is allergic to irony. They wouldn’t know irony if they fell over it.You pose the question: If no one watches, then what? We say people will watch– it’s network television after all. But we also go a bit further and say that there’s absolutely no reason that NBC couldn’t have chosen to go the high road. Jumped the shark? Us? You haven’t been reading us very carefully at all.Are you in television, by any chance?