Last night I finally got around to watching the new "Comic Relief" special and, while I realize it's for a good cause and all, was it a disaster or what? The always-unfunny Whoopi Goldberg, a subpar Billy Crystal, and - my-GOD-was-he-annoying- Robin Williams hosted, with various comedians doing back-of-the-book material. I think Bill Maher's routine was comprised entirely of jokes that weren't good enough for his own show. And when Dane Cook appeared, I bailed out early.
Of course, it didn't help that the "comedy" was bracketed by various hyper-earnest lectures (including Whoopi telling us to "wake up" to the horrors of Katrina,) or that Crystal talked seriously about the hurricane while Williams made faux-gospel sounds ("mmm hmm! That's right!") in the background. And to top it all off, they didn't even bother to film it in New Orleans.
If you have multiple HBOs, and you watched this while the finale of "The Wire" was showing on another channel, then I'm sorry, you should really be ashamed of yourself.
Posted by Stephen Silver at December 14, 2006 03:37 PM