Presenting The 25 Funniest People in America. From Conan O’Brien to Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey to Craig Ferguson, let’s count down the names of the entertainers who make us laugh the hardest.
25. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running with Scissors — about being raised by a nutso shrink who studies his poo and rents the back shed to a pedophile — is unbelievably disturbing. And sidesplitting. At first we felt guilty giggling at his adventures with an electroshock therapy machine, but Burroughs knows that laughter is the best antidepressant. Much better than booze, which the author struggles to kick in his equally effervescent follow-up, Dry.
24. CATHERINE O’HARA
After her run on SCTV in the late ’70s, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with O’Hara. Fortunately, Christopher Guest did. In Waiting for Guffman, she and Fred Willard are tracksuit-wearing answers to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; in Best in Show, she’s a onetime floozy with a prize terrier and a torrid past; and in A Mighty Wind, O’Hara shows off a subtler comic touch, proving that humor doesn’t always mean a pie in the face.
23. SARAH SILVERMAN
The Lenny Bruce of the 21st century might be this hot, foul-mouthed, button-punching stand-up. Silverman is ruthlessly funny about topics like sex, the Holocaust, and 9/11, which may be why The Sarah Silverman Program has a permanent slot on our DVR. Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, she’s f—ing Matt Damon.
22. DAVE CHAPPELLE
The fact that Diamond Dave is all but absent from the comedic stage these days doesn’t invalidate his funny. After all, Chappelle’s revered Comedy Central show — on which the wiry comic gleefully engaged in crass T&A humor, swore like a sailor, and mocked everyone in the multiculti rainbow, confronting race in a way that is positively Pryor-esque — is still the best sketch comedy this country has seen in more than a decade. For that alone, he deserves a spot on any list like this.
21. DEMETRI MARTIN
You know what’s funny? Palindromes and anagrams. ”Shut up, Grandma,” you say, but we say shut up yourself and watch Demetri Martin work a stand-up mic. ”A drunk driver’s very dangerous. Everybody knows that. But so is a drunk backseat driver — if he’s persuasive.” The floppy-haired heir to Steven Wright won a prestigious award at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking him from the comedy underground to…the comedy slightly less underground.
20. DIABLO CODY
Not to be partial, but the newly minted Oscar winner showed off her comedic — and emotional — chops with her debut screenplay for Juno. Did we mention it won an Oscar?
19. CRAIG FERGUSON
Late night is the province of the mono-name. Jay! Dave! Conan! Then there’s that Scottish guy, two-name ID required: Craig Ferguson. You know, the one who can’t quite be pinned down. Since taking over CBS’ Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, Ferguson has brought a fresh burst of energy to the format. He’s reinvented the opening monologue, doing away with most of the topical jokes and just ad-libbing about his life. Along with fresh energy, he’s brought something else — ratings. Ferguson, 45 and a brand-spanking-new U.S. Citizen, doesn’t get as much media attention as time-slot competitors Jimmy Kimmel or Conan, but with an audience of just under 2 million, the great Scot outperforms the former and has climbed within 500,000 viewers of the latter.
18. JACK BLACK
Black is an entirely new classification of human: the frenetic slacker. Before his turn as doofus band reject/inspirational teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was the Ritalin-deprived half of Tenacious D (along with his partner, Kyle Gass) and the list-obsessed record-shop shlub in High Fidelity. He is, inarguably, the coolest fusion of music and comedy since Spinal Tap. (And, if Tropic Thunder is as good as we’ve been led to believe, we’ll forgive him that whole Nacho Libre business.)
17. DAVID LETTERMAN
With a receding hairline and a jogger’s grim jowls, Dave is no one’s idea of a hip comic, and he likes it that way. New-school gone old-school, the upstart who first pumped irony into the talk show still rails against the stupidity of the powerful and yet has the charm to melt Julia Roberts.
16. AMY SEDARIS AND DAVID SEDARIS
Big brother is the best-selling author of the sublime autobiographical essay collections Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, full of terrific riffs about stuff like his cuckoo-clock North Carolina clan and his midget guitar teacher. Little sis was the rubber-faced star of Comedy Central’s truly strange Strangers With Candy, as well as coauthor of the book Wigfield.
15. WILL FERRELL
See, there’s this man-child who latches onto Will Ferrell in most every role he plays — and good luck getting the little guy to let go. As a result, we are treated to inspired displays of dolt-trapped-in-the-headlights hijinks, be it in the form of Old School’s keghead Frank the Tank (who goes from repressed to regressed to undressed) or Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, the dumbest, most earnest NASCAR driver on the circuit — who’s also the most comfortable with his sexuality.
14. RICKY GERVAIS
Okay, so he doesn’t spend all that much of his time in America. We don’t care. Whether as the creator of The Office and Extras, a supporting actor in movies like For Your Consideration or Night at the Museum, or doing killer stand-up (as seen most recently in Grand Theft Auto IV), he’s still as funny as the dog’s bollocks.
13. ELLEN DEGENERES
DeGeneres, whose career seemed all but kaput a few years ago, has earned back adoration simply by being her affably dry self on the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Whether it’s her circuitous monologues, her deadpan celebrity interviews, or that vocal turn as Dory in Finding Nemo, she remains one of the cleanest, coolest funny ladies around.
12. DAVID CROSS
All conversations about his genius start here: Along with Bob Odenkirk, he created the cunning HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which routinely put SNL to silly shame. And not only does Cross work little miracles in supporting roles (remember his role as feckless freak-job Tobias on Fox’s Arrested Development?), he can drop some pretty fearsome stand-up (who else talks about being raped by the Virgin Mary?). Simply put, this dude never kowtows for his funny.
11. CONAN O’BRIEN
Smarty-pants isn’t usually a compliment, but O’Brien wears them so well. When this Harvard geek isn’t riffing on Muammar Gaddafi in his monologue, he’s making absurd innovations in low-brow comedy. Now, let’s see if those absurd innovations will play on The Tonight Show….
The Saturday Night Live scene-stealer has found her stride in her third season, thanks to breakout characters like the Target clerk and the obsessively competitive Penelope, as well as spot-on impressions of Jamie Lee Curtis and Suze Orman.
9. LARRY DAVID
Because he’s a balding, neurotic, self-consumed, multimillionaire malcontent who reacts to most social interactions as if he just took a whiff of some really bad cheese. Because the only thing he hates more than these situations is himself. Because he’s the most hilariously doomed white-guy antihero we’ve ever seen, and has no problems taking on every sacred cow. Because we have no idea how much of this Larry David — from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm — is swiped from the real Larry David. And because both Larry Davids co-created one of the best comedies ever, Seinfeld.
8. AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT
The funniest married couple on the list. (Sorry, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.) When they’re apart (she, on Saturday Night Live and in Baby Mama; he, late of Arrested Development and currently guesting on 30 Rock), they’re great. But when they’re together, as when they played brother-and sister figure skaters in Blades of Glory, they’re resplendent. So let’s get those crazy kids together more often, shall we?
7. MATT STONE AND TREY PARKER
Now in their eleventh season of South Park, these potty mouths with a purpose continue to remind us what full creative control gets you: moments so wrong, they’re right (Ben Affleck falling in love with Cartman’s hand comes to mind). Added bonus: The ninth season episode, ”Trapped in the Closet” contains the most sober explanation of the background of Scientology you’ll ever hear.
6. CHRIS ROCK
Television failed him (Saturday Night Live didn’t know what to do with his bright-bulb humor, and his HBO talk show couldn’t contain him). The movies didn’t get him (though this is as much Rock’s fault as anyone’s, given he wrote and directed his most recent starring vehicles, the underperforming Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife). But on the stage, Rock is a man on a mission, mercilessly tackling race, religion, money, and relationships. And his missionaries are legion.
5. STEVE CARELL
Sometimes, it hurts so good. The pain, the discomfort, the agony of watching Carell’s Michael Scott work himself into another awkward scenario on NBC’s The Office…and almost work himself out. And the fact that we don’t hate Michael — on the contrary, we feel a warm, chocolatey pity for him — is a testament to Carell, who leavens the bald incompetence with wide-eyed awe.
4. JON STEWART AND THE ‘DAILY SHOW’ TEAM
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the most consistent laugh machine on TV — and the only news source for scores of cynics and slackers. It’s not often that a comedy show can tackle politics, embrace a cogent point of view, and still maintain its anarchic spark. The scribes at The Daily Show pull it off four nights a week. As the heart and soul of the show, Stewart is evenhanded but never meek; as an interviewer, he can make his guests comfortable even as he’s taking them apart. Then there’s his gang of ”correspondents,” who soldier straight-facedly into the great American absurd and take no prisoners. Empirically speaking, there’s nothing funny about what’s going on in the world right now. Yet here we are each week, chortling.
3. TINA FEY
It takes a certain self-confidence to play a woman who accidentally dates her third cousin, erroneously assumes her neighbor is a terrorist, and gets called the C-word by a colleague (especially when said character is based on you). ”I love going to those uncomfortable places,” says Fey, who stars as 30 Rock’s workaholic TV maven and is also the NBC show’s creator and exec producer. ”I’ll go down any weird avenue.” Maybe this year’s surprise Emmy win for best comedy will empower Fey to pursue some dreams for her alter ego. ”Liz Lemon could do an international adoption for a Russian baby and get the paperwork wrong with the European dates and somehow end up with a huge, muscular 13-year-old. Yeah, I could see that.” Hopefully we will too.
2. STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE ‘COLBERT REPORT’ TEAM
The once (and, we’re sure, future) presidential nominee, author, and dedicated windbag also happens to be one of the smartest satirists working today. Heck, if all the dude had on his resume was the legendary 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he’d go down in comedy history. But week-in and week-out, Colbert takes aim at the political-industrial complex — and I don’t care if there’s no such term — and spins the facts into truth. Or truthiness. Whichever’s easier.
1. THE JUDD APATOW POSSE
Can you even remember what movie comedy looked like before writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and his ever-expanding comedy clan (including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd) came along last summer with two stiff shots of cathartic humor — the oops-she’s-preggers romp Knocked Up and the high school raunchfest Superbad? Today, when studio execs have a comedy that feels flat or formulaic, the call goes out to ”Judd it up” — sweet irony for a man once best known for critically beloved flops like TV’s Freaks and Geeks. ”It was always my dream to become a verb,” Apatow deadpans. ”That’s what I wrote in my high school yearbook.”
Viacom filed $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube’s ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, YouTube owner Google Inc. said.
Google’s lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan as the company responded to Viacom Inc.’s latest lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to “an explosion of copyright infringement” by YouTube and others.
The back-and-forth between the companies has intensified since Viacom brought its lawsuit last year, saying it was owed damages for the unauthorized viewing of its programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, including such hits as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
In papers submitted to a judge late Friday, Google said YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works.”
It said that by seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.”
Google said YouTube was faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying the federal law was intended to protect companies like YouTube as long as they responded properly to content owners’ claims of infringement.
On that score, Viacom says Google has set a terrible example.
In a rewritten lawsuit filed last month, Viacom said YouTube consistently allows unauthorized copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its Web site and viewed tens of thousands of times.
Viacom said it had identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of copyrighted programming — including “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “South Park” and “MTV Unplugged” episodes and the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” — that had been viewed “an astounding 1.5 billion times.”
The company said its count of unauthorized clips represents only a fraction of the content on YouTube that violates its copyrights.
It said Google and YouTube had done “little or nothing” to stop infringement.
“To the contrary, the availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants’ business plan,” Viacom said.
Frankly, I think it’s all blown out of proportion. Most of what is perceived as copyright infringement could be simply chalked up to promotion. They should be glad we care enough.
source: YouTube suit called threat to online communication [yahoo news]
Danny Gallagher has a great list of the “10 Greatest Mother*#@$ing Cursers in Movie History.”
5. Eric Cartman in “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut”
We all knew Cartman would have the best and baudiest cursing moments when it came to bringing the TV show to the big screen. But no one ever could have predicted that the fat ass’s dirty, dirty mouth, which up until the movie was only good for destroying Cheesy Poofs and Snacky Cakes, could actually be used as a weapon. There’s not a silencer big enough for this kid.
4. Jeff Bridges in “The Big Lebowski”
Bridges doesn’t get many chances to drop the “F-bomb” in between his various movie roles and voice overs for Duracell commercials. But we would be remiss if we didn’t mention his brilliant performance in one of the Coen Brothers’ brightest and best movies to date. His cursing not only makes the performance funny and real because such a stream of angry curse words would be the last thing you’d expect from a peace loving, “Creedance” listening, weed smoking hippie.
3. Samuel L. Jackson in “Pulp Fiction”
He’s had some better performances earlier in his day, but even a bad movie can be made better by his potty mouth. “Pulp Fiction” and “Snakes on a Plane” might be his most popular performances to date, but they’ve also got some of the most quotable cursing scenes. It’s the only time in history that the word “mother##*$er” could be acceptable in public as long as it was in the phrase by “I’m sick of these mother#%$*ing snakes on this mother*#%$ing plane!”
2. Al Pacino of “Scarface”
If you’re going to curse, you’d better have a strong voice to back it up and no one can make the spittle fly like the Godfather himself. Pacino is to cursing what Picasso is to painting. He throws them around the room from all sides and at all angles and when the dust clears, you have a masterpiece of profanity staring you in the face. If you could capture just one of Pacino’s cursings and put it in a frame, you’d get a check from Sotheby’s auction house that would put you on easy street for the rest of your life.
1. Joe Pesci in “Goodfellas”
But when it comes to big time, no holds barred, balls to the #*($ing wall cursing, there’s only one face to turn to my friend. And even though you may have to look down when you turn to it, expect to be brought down to your knees. Almost every performance Pesci has done were about guys who spoke from their heart and didn’t bother to filter it by the time it came flying out of their mouths. Imagine how much better “Gone Fishin’” would have been if the director let him sling a few “#*#$s” around the room.
See the link for the other five. And read the comments, which have some pretty funny “you should have included…” examples.
The episode, which is still in production, will have the town at the heart of “South Park” preparing for the arrival of Clinton for a big campaign rally. At the same time, the character Cartman suspects a new Muslim student is behind a terrorist threat - one that includes Clinton as a target.
Comedy Central insiders wouldn’t reveal more of the story line - and also suggested it’s not unusual for content to change several times until the point where the producers deliver the show to the network for airing at 10 p.m.
The episode, “The Snuke,” marks the first time Clinton will be animated on the series, which has made references to her before.
Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker insist on creating each episode in a week, ensuring that the ideas are fresh and not over-worked. It’s quite possible, indeed, that the show is not yet finished and even they don’t know how it’ll turn out.
Rolling Stone has assembled what they believe to be the 25 funniest moments from the first ten years of “South Park” and provide a video clip for each of them.
Their tastes are clearly different from mine, as I don’t find several of the ones they picked funny at all. I mean, the Towelie character? C’mon.
Still, these are pretty good:
MOMENT #22 Cartman addresses Congress in an attempt to save his friend by convincing them of the merits of stem-cell research. They finally agree after he leads them in a sing-along version of prog supergroup’s Asia 1980’s classic “Heat of the Moment” — one of many songs from that era Cartman has an affinity for.
MOMENT #21: South Park takes on The Simpsons. South Park pays homage to its predecessor by admitting that The Simpsons has covered literally every plot imaginable. In the end, all the characters morph into yellow-skinned Springfield residents.
MOMENT #19 Realizing just how profitable Christian pop rock can be, Cartman forms a group called Faith +1 with Token and Butters. They go on to sell millions. Sample lyric: “I wanna get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus! I wanna feel his salvation all over my face!”
MOMENT #12 In what turned out to be South Park’s most notorious episode, Scientologists conclude that Kyle must be a reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard. Kyle is given a brief overview of the cult’s beliefs via an abridged version of the Scientology creation myth, which features frozen aliens in volcanoes, alien warlord Xenu…the whole she-bang. Throughout, the message “This is what Scientologists actually believe” is periodically flashed on the screen.
There are a lot of classic South Park scenes missing from the list, though, and some of the show at its sick-not-funny worst included.
Vanessa Grigoriadis looks at Comedy Central’s “South Park” as it enters its tenth season for the cover story of this month’s Rolling Stone. The subhead says it all: “For ten years, ‘South Park’ has been the crudest, stupidest, most offensive show on television. And the funniest.”
Some excerpts:
It’s also the most ideologically opaque political show on television, fostering an open-ended dialogue on difficult questions like whether one has a duty to obey unfair laws or if there is a God in an evil world. Unlike The Simpsons, which is intellectual and pleasantly dumb in its portrayal of American life, using both to further a leftist agenda, South Park offers simple parables — often with an optimistic message — to take aim at all issues without ever showing its hand. “If Matt and Trey came out and said what they were about, all of a sudden people would watch the show with a map,” says Penn Jillette, a close friend. “But you shouldn’t have a map to look at during the ride. You must trust the art and not the artist. They’ll never say what they’re about.”
[...]
Most of South Park’s humor either advocates radical individualism (everyone is stupid, so don’t listen to anyone but yourself) and/or a conservative agenda (this is a great country, and you’re a pussy if you’re down in the mouth about President Bush). Neither Stone nor Parker will delineate his political views, and both contend that the libertarian label, which has been applied to them in recent years, is not entirely appropriate. (As far as the “South Park Republicans” tag that was affixed to their fans a few years ago to define the “cool” part of the conservative movement, they say it’s a dumb notion.) They won’t talk about the war, even to voice an opinion on President Bush’s new troop-deployment plan. “I wouldn’t even begin to say I know enough to say if it’s right or wrong, because whomever is telling you it’s wrong is full of shit too,” says Parker. Neither votes — “like, ever,” says Stone. Parker waves a hand in the air. “Each election is a choice with a douche or a turd, so who cares,” he says. “If Gore had beaten Bush, things wouldn’t be much different.”
While Stone is in fact deeply immersed in politics and a serious reader of nonfiction books about the Middle East, I practically have to wrestle him to hear a smidge of his politics: He’s against the War on Drugs, pro-gay marriage, against socialized medicine and basically in favor of free markets, except in cases like dropping public funding for roads or education. As for Parker, who owns a couple of guns, the closest I can come is his paraphrase of Team America’s climactic monologue: “There’s a difference between dicks and assholes. Because there are terrorists — assholes — you’ve got to have dicks, people who hunt down terrorists. Dicks are bad, and it sucks to be a dick, but it’s way worse to be an asshole, and because there are assholes, we need dicks. So shut the fuck up, all you pussies!”
Try to argue back to this kind of logic, and the joke’s on you, much to the glee of Stone and Parker. “We went to a party in Malibu on the beach recently,” says Stone, “and this woman came up to us, like, ‘Oh, my son is at the University of Colorado, and I can’t get him to go to class, because he snowboards all the time.’ I’m immediately thinking, ‘Fuck you and your kid,’ because I couldn’t afford to snowboard in college. Then I say, ‘Yeah, I still go to Colorado to visit my family.’ She’s like, ‘So they really are just a bunch of gun-toting hicks out there, aren’t they?’ I’m like, ‘I just told you my mom and dad and sister live there.’ Then Trey walks up to her and says, ‘George Bush is a great man.’ She looked like we’d poured acid in her ear. We were laughing our asses off.”
“That’s the most punk-rock thing you can do in L.A.: say ‘George Bush is fucking awesome’ instead of talking about how lame it is that he’s fighting for oil,” says Parker. “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, ‘Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you’re a pierced faggot and whatever.’ ” He looks very pleased with himself. “That’s hardcore.”
Sarah Silverman has sex with “God” last night on her eponymous television show. Joe Kovacs of WorldNetDaily has the details.
Comic Sarah Silverman not happy that God is cuddling with her after sex on Comedy Central’s ‘Sarah Silverman Program’ Comedy Central consummated its season of “the Sarah Silverman Program” last night by featuring the title character having sex with God, and then trying to brush him off after a night of lovemaking. Silverman was shown in bed with an amorous Almighty, whom she referred to as “Black God,” portrayed by actor Tucker Smallwood, a former NBC television director who also served in the Army in Vietnam.
The network, perhaps best known for its boundary-pushing “South Park” series, is offering an online clip of the episode, which is slated for rebroadcast tonight at 10:30 p.m. Eastern. (Viewer discretion of the clip and website strongly advised.)
A partial transcript of the morning after the holy sexcapade is as follows:
God: I had a really good time last night. A really, really good time.
Silverman: Thaaaanks (in a disdainful tone). Me too.
God: Come to heaven with me today.
Silverman: Today.
God: You’ll see the past and the future. You can fly, and I will introduce you to Thomas Jefferson.
Silverman: Oh, awesome. I told my friend, Natalie, I’d help her move, though.
God: I can stop time!
Comic Sarah Silverman tries to give God, played by Tucker Smallwood, the brush-off after having sex with him on Comedy Central’s ‘Sarah Silverman Program’
Silverman: That is so sweet. Oh, your pants are over there. I mean, not like I’m asking you to leave. I just mean, like if you can’t see it from this angle of still being in my bed.
God: Right, I should go.
Silverman: OK, um, all right, so, I guess I’ll see you around some time.
God: Do you mean it?! Or are you just saying that?
Silverman: I don’t just say things. I’m a lot of things. I’m not dishonest.
God: Can I get your cell number?
Silverman: I don’t have a cell phone.
At that point, Silverman’s cell phone starts ringing and the embittered God character zips up his pants. At the conclusion of the episode, Silverman knees God in the groin.
PEOPLE surveyed several Hollywood celebrities and got their picks for the year’s best books, movies, music and TV shows. Here’s what they found:
TV SHOWS
Ashlee Simpson: Desperate Housewives – “It’s one of those shows like Sex and the City – every girl likes it.”
Monique Coleman: Grey’s Anatomy – “Even though there’s huge issues, at the end of the day we’re still concerned about the characters – that’s good TV.”
Macy Gray: Nip/Tuck – “It’s over-the-top-
drama. It’s crazy. I don’t know who thinks of that stuff.”
John Stamos:South Park – “The show is so timely. If something happens, in like two weeks it’s parodied on there.”
Nicky Hilton:The Girls
Next Door – “I just think they’re so funny.”
MOVIES
Josh Groban: The Prestige – “Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are awesome. And I’ve loved magic since I was a kid. That it’s a murder mystery with twists based on magic makes it amazing.”
Jaime Pressly: The Departed – “It was amazing. It’s a brilliant film. Everyone in it was great.”
Anjelica Huston: Borat – “I don’t know if it’s the best movie, but it’s the funniest. I have never laughed so
hard in a movie. I’ve never laughed so
hard, period.�
Mike Myers: The Fountain – “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it. All the performances were great. It was transformative.”
Clay Aiken: The Queen – “Helen Mirren looks just like Queen Elizabeth. Acted like her! I thought it was very good.”
MUSIC
Anne Hathaway: Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat – “You can just listen to it start to finish and it tells a story. It’s beautiful, funny and very subversive. I really love it.”
Chris Cornell: Bob Dylan, Modern Times – “I think it’s fantastic. There’s a lightness to it that doesn’t normally come from him. When I say lightness, like a happiness.”
Zach Braff: Joshua Radin, We Were Here – “It’s just the greatest music. He’s a really talented guy. He’s like the new Paul Simon.”
Katharine McPhee: Christina Aguilera, Back to Basics – “I really like her record. I think she brought some cool old-school
stuff to it, and amazing vocals.”
BOOKS
Terrence Howard: Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho –”It teaches you to enjoy each moment.”
Ben Affleck: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond – “I’m reading a lot
of nonfiction. . . .This is really good right now.”
Jennifer Connelly: In the Land of Magic Soldiers by Daniel Bergner – “That was the last one I read – it was actually about Sierra Leone, where Blood Diamond takes place. It was really fantastic.”
Queen Latifah: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith – “I love it. It’s a whole series.”
Patricia Heaton: The Tiny One by Eliza Minot – “It’s about a girl who loses her mother, and she chronicles the whole day before she finds out her mother died. She’s exactly the age I was when my mother died. I’d read a few pages and then start sobbing.”
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have managed to make the news again, this time by making fun of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin on South Park.
The creators of South Park have never been afraid to upset celebrities - and many of the show’s viewers. From jokes about religion and homosexuality to four-letter tirades, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always mixed shock tactics with satire in the hit cartoon series. But they were accused of hitting a new low last night after lampooning the demise of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin just weeks after his death.
The latest episode shows an animated Irwin in Hell with a stingray poking out of his bleeding chest. Irwin, 44, died in September after he was impaled by a stingray’s barb, while snorkelling near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
The South Park episode called Hell On Earth 2006, which was broadcast in the US this week, shows Satan preparing to host a Hallowe’en fancy dress party. Hundreds of dead celebrities are invited, including rapper Notorious B.I.G., Princess Diana and Hitler.
But at the party Satan receives complaints from his guests that someone is inappropriately dressed up as Irwin. Satan confronts Irwin but the Aussie environmentalist protests it is really him, not a guest in a costume. While characters have been killed off in the series before – spawning the show’s catchphrase “Oh my god, they killed Kenny!” – campaigners are particularly incensed about the stingray still being attached to Irwin’s bloodstained trademark khaki shirt.
[...]
British broadcasting watchdog Mediawatch condemned the episode as “grossly insensitive.” Its director, John Beyer, said: “I think this is in bad taste. Steve Irwin’s family are still grieving.” “To lampoon somebody’s death like that is unacceptable and so soon after the event is grossly insensitive. It is not what the family would want to see.”
I haven’t yet seen the episode but agree that mocking Irwin so soon after his death is rather tacky. Still, Irwin was a celebrity and that’s the path he chose. His death was big news, he was mourned in a giant state funeral, and he’s been mocked publicly.
Indeed, Norm McDonald made fun of the circumstances of Irwin’s death weeks ago on the Jon Stewart Show:
Take a look at some of the related posts below for more controversial topics on South Park.
5. Eric Cartman in “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut”
