Rush and Ann jump the shark

Oh, this is too much.

My fellow Palm Beach County residents Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter opened up the Fox News Daily Show knockoff, The 1/2 Hour News Hour, with a knee-slapper of a sketch Sunday evening.



I'm sorry, but you have to watch at least the first few seconds of it to hear the laugh track. It's appallingly fake, and the sketch is extraordinarily unfunny.

Frank Cerabino's review in the Palm Beach Post today sums it up nicely:

In the skit (now, get this, it's hilarious!), Limbaugh is the next president of the United States after defeating Howard Dean.

President Limbaugh, from his desk at the Oval Office, said with his typical air of bravura that "my Democratic opponent Howard Dean is finally getting the medical attention he has so desperately needed for so long."

Funny. And not just because the creators of the show dropped in a track of riotous recorded laughter to chum for theoretical viewer chuckles.

It's funny because Limbaugh is actually the guy who needed the medical attention for so long, not Dean, who is a doctor and has not had his mug shot taken at the Palm Beach County Jail.

What really sold the joke was that Limbaugh actually looked like he meant it, and that he was completely unaware of the obvious self-parody here.

At first, I was confused, thinking that this might have been another case of his being unintentionally funny.

But then he continued, saying that as president he would be trying to get the country to recover from its disastrous recent past.

"After just two years of a Democratic controlled Congress, America's international reputation is a shambles, our economy teeters on the brink of collapse and Cindy Sheehan's cross-country shooting spree is still fresh in our minds," he said, keeping a straight face as the recorded laugh track convulsed behind him.

[...]

And then he brought out his vice president, Coulter. More laugh track eruptions. Coulter, looking like the Grim Reaper in a black dress, urged viewers to watch the rest of the show: "And if you don't, we'll invade your country, kill your leaders and convert you to Christianity."

I love this conservative brand of humor. It's so subtle. And it's a great new direction for Limbaugh and Coulter, who should build on this stem cell of an act, allowing it to evolve in comedy clubs, preferably ones with a laugh track rather than an actual audience.

As we well know, there's nothing subtle about Rush or Ann, or really anything neo-con-related. The only humor they know is sick and twisted and morally bankrupt, whether it's on Fox News or KSFO or any other outlet for wingnut lunatics (I know, that's redundant) to jerk off to something other than Michelle Malkin in fatigues.

It must be hard to put a satirical news show on a network that is a satire itself. But, then again, maybe FNC deserves the benefit of the doubt. I mean, choosing the two biggest douchebags in punditry today to launch a show that jumped the shark before it even aired, well, that's real comedy.

Isn't it?