GROWING UP

I've long time been a critic of American humour finding it to be immature if not actually puerile.
The dumbing down I guess has been to cater to the lowest common denominator so we had for so long on all channels inane sit-coms with annoying laugh tracks (to tell the viewers when something funny has been said).

When it comes to 'news' comedy shows we were subjected to low-brow Johnny Carson tripe and even lower brow David Letterman shit. In place of laugh tracks this show employed an orchestra with an unfunny little gnome who would  direct 'musical puns', cymbal crashes etc to underscore the 'boss's unfunny comments.

UNFUNNY PAUL SHAFFER

Probably chosen so as to not be funnier that the unfunny David Letterman.

Remember the national embarrassment to New Zealand when John Key ill-advisedly went on to this programme.

JOHN KEY ON LETTERMAN

The stupid musical side-kick concept is used by Stephen Corbert and was used by Jimmy Fallon's version as well. Dumb and unnecessary. I don't really like Corbert much preferring the excellent Jon Stewart who has been off the air but does a guest spot on previous rival Stephen Corbert's show here:

JON STEWART ON STEPHEN CORBERT'S SHOW


One thing for me that the Donald Trump 'news' over the last year has done has been to introduce me to some excellent alternative news sources (not fake news or alternative facts).
I have been watching John Oliver, Bill Maher and Trevor Noah and find them to be clever, very funny and not prepared to pull punches. They get right to the issues and don't feel the need (or at least not excessively so) to dumb things down. This I guess is a result of the splitting up of news and information sources as a positive side of the growth of social media and alternative communication channels. Instead of chasing a mass audience these channels 'channel' themselves to target audiences.

See below at your leisure some excerpts that are highly recommended. *

TREVOR NOAH


BILL MAHER


JOHN OLIVER



* Note: No unsolicited religious messages are contained in these clips.