Over the weekend there was an exciting announcement. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin congressman, would be Mitt Romney's running mate for the upcoming election.
I wasn't excited about the fact that a politician from Wisconsin had the opportunity to become Vice-President of the United States (ok, maybe a little, I love anything that will boost Wisco recognition). I wasn't excited because I'm a huge fan of Paul Ryan's (I don't know enough about politics to have those kind of opinions), and I wasn't excited because I felt he could help (or hurt) Romeny's chances of winning the election.
No, I was excited because there was a new player that had just been thrown into the political comedy game. A new target with a history that was ripe for picking through. That's what I like most about the election season, the comedy that comes out of it. My immediate question when Ryan was announced wasn't: Why he had been chosen? It was: Who is going to impersonate him on Saturday Night Live this season?
That's where my priorities are. Politics is such a circus between the media coverage and the attack ads, that it's good to see the candidates be bought down to earth a little by comedians. However, since SNL won't start its new season until September, I was looking forward to new episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Before I dive into that I feel obligated to mention that there is another source of political comedy (there are actually many, but this is the only one I am going to mention) that takes politicians to task: late-night comedy talk shows. The difference between late-night talk shows and the other three shows I mentioned though, is that the late-night talk show hosts rely on singular jokes told in their monologues. It's pretty standard fair with a setup and a punchline. But that's the problem, it's a one off.
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report allow for a longer running commentary on what is going on in the world of politics. It's a more focused and critical approach. That's why I was excited to see what John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and their staff of writers had come up with to analyze the new VP pick.
The issue was that both shows had other obligations that distracted from being able to fully dive into Paul Ryan. The Daily Show focused more on the fact they had Robert Pattinson's first television interview since Kristen Stewart admitted to cheating on him. The Colbert Report on the other hand had to contend with its own weeklong musical festival, so it couldn't commit more than five minutes to Ryan. This was admittedly disappointing. Both seemed directionless and half-hearted in their attempts to find comedy in Ryan, but I think I know why.
The longer I watched last night the more I began to determine the difficulty they were running into, and it came down to one factor. Nothing had happened yet. Sure Ryan had been chosen, but there wasn't anything inherently funny about choosing a nominee, especially one like Ryan. And, while he has conservative views, simply pointing them out isn't enough material to do a show on without coming across as overly liberal (which they do most of the time anyway, but the point I am trying to make is that they just couldn't come out and call the guy crazy). The comedians were trying to familiarize themselves with Ryan just like the rest of the country was.
Stewart had a pretty good bit in the second half of his show deconstructing why the things that conservatives believed made Ryan a strong pick were the exact same things the liberals believed made him an awful one. The best part of this was the fact he was able to move away from Twilight jokes and get into some of the absurdity that was going to come out of this pick.
Colbert was able to have a little more fun with the pick since he plays off the conservative bent, but as a I mentioned, he was hindered by the time he needed to devote to the music being featured on his show.
Both shows will benefit from the passing of time as Ryan really begins to campaign and interview. I call this post Vol. 1 because there will certainly be more to come, specifically when SNL starts up again, if not sooner.
Until then, I'll keep watching, because now that all the players are in place, the fun really begins.
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