It was the maid...
August 11, 2004 1:33 PM   Subscribe

moveonplease.org "Everything Bad Fault Of Rumsfeld"....
posted by konolia (69 comments total)
 
We knew they occasionally exhibited a primitive sense of humor, but until now it seemed satire was completely out of their reach...
posted by Shane at 1:43 PM on August 11, 2004


I disagree with the politics, but well done. The site is genuinely funny.
posted by hipnerd at 1:45 PM on August 11, 2004


Ha! That's hilarious.
posted by mathowie at 1:46 PM on August 11, 2004


heh. they got it wrong tho--Everything Bad is Fault of Bush. jeez.
and the Mr.Wong ads all over kinda mess up the parody.
posted by amberglow at 1:46 PM on August 11, 2004


Oh, National Lampoon! You've never been funny since I was old enough to read you, yet you're still around. How is that? When was the last time anyone heard the words "National Lampoon" and wasn't slightly embarassed? Probably when the original "Vacation" came out in nineteen-eighty-frigging-three.

Does PJ O'Rourke think of the current staff as retarded cousins and slip them money? Surely they don't keep afloat with straight-to-video "Animal House" retreads and a magazine that everyone forgot ever existed. Maybe going right wing is their new marketing strategy. Worked for Fox News and it got people remembering who Dennis Miller was a for a few days.
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:47 PM on August 11, 2004


How does parodying MoveOn.org make one "right-wing"?
posted by dhoyt at 1:57 PM on August 11, 2004


I thought National Lampoon's staff were mainly non-political drunks in hawaiian t-shirts. Since when do they care about anything that isn't naked women?
posted by destro at 2:01 PM on August 11, 2004


Oh, it's Nat'l Lampoon! *phew!* That explains it. For a moment there I thought maybe Rush or Ann Coulter underwent some weird spontaneous mutation and developed a subtle sense of humor that didn't involve bashing people over the head with insults and accusations.

Good stuff!
posted by Shane at 2:01 PM on August 11, 2004


National Lampoon keeps getting better! "Extended footage-- never seen in theaters" indeed!

An elephant fucking a rhinocerous! These guys are gold!

Guide to beating you kids. Hah! Can you imagine? Of course, there aren't really any jokes in the text, and the title isn't clever, so it's really just for shock value. Oh, National Lampoon, you're not PC at all and you don't care who knows it!

Michael Jackson jokes! Who would ever have thought of that?
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:02 PM on August 11, 2004


National Lampoon is lonely and wants people to pay attention to it. "DON'T YOU REMEMBER ANIMAL HOUSE???" it sobs into its pillow after another night of trying to troll the youngsters and maybe find a sweet young thing that will appreciate its brand of, er, "humor." Oh, National Lampoon, it must pain you that people prefer "Cracked" to you. National Lampoon, what do you do now that all those Harvard weisenheimers go straight to sitcom writing? National Lampoon, you sad old git.

And even without the crippling burden of being a product of National Lampoon, the site was just...lame. Trying to satirize earnestness can be done, but not by these buffoons. So very, very sad.
posted by solistrato at 2:04 PM on August 11, 2004 [1 favorite]


Not only is Michael O'Donoghue still dead, but his spirit is apparently completely departed as well.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 2:06 PM on August 11, 2004


haha! liberals!
posted by mcsweetie at 2:10 PM on August 11, 2004


Maximum lameness. I'm with da Mayor.
posted by The God Complex at 2:11 PM on August 11, 2004


Wow...konolia's got a sense of humor! You go, girl! This is a cute site.
posted by ChrisTN at 2:20 PM on August 11, 2004


is this site half finished or just a piece of shit?
posted by bob sarabia at 2:27 PM on August 11, 2004


Ick
posted by Outlawyr at 2:46 PM on August 11, 2004


Satire works when there is truth behind the jokes. I stopped looking at the site when the flogged the "MoveOn Bush = Hitler" non story.
posted by McBain at 2:50 PM on August 11, 2004


We knew they occasionally exhibited a primitive sense of humor...

In contrast, apparently, to the majority of posters here so far. Most of you would fall over backwards chortling at the lamest anti-Bush gag out there, so the least you can do is tolerate a little bit of the same medicine.
posted by Krrrlson at 2:59 PM on August 11, 2004


Oh, and -- good post, konolia. Too bad you'll be flamed to no end for it.
posted by Krrrlson at 3:01 PM on August 11, 2004


Too bad you'll be flamed to no end for it.

Matt liked it. Who cares what the rest think? ;-)
posted by konolia at 3:08 PM on August 11, 2004


I liked it, very funny.
posted by caddis at 3:13 PM on August 11, 2004


Matt liked it. Who cares what the rest think? ;-)

You must remember to replace the batteries in your sarcasm detector every six months.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:15 PM on August 11, 2004


Now, the way I would've parodied MoveOn.org would be with a URL like "moveonup.org" (regrettably owned by "Scottish TV"?!?), and do the whole site in the voice of Sherman Hemsley as George Jefferson.

In related news, if you go to either movealong.com or movealong.org, there's nothing to see there.
posted by wendell at 3:25 PM on August 11, 2004


*slaps wendell*
posted by quonsar at 3:32 PM on August 11, 2004


You must remember to replace the batteries in your sarcasm detector every six months


Batteries?? It takes batteries?
posted by konolia at 3:35 PM on August 11, 2004


I thought it really was funny. Who the fuck cares who did it, can't you laugh at yourselves for one second, just this once? I've enjoyed seeing moveon stuff and seeing moveon folks speak before. It doesn't mean I can't laugh when I see someone mock them.
posted by mathowie at 3:44 PM on August 11, 2004


Well that was about as funny as leprosy
posted by dodgygeezer at 3:46 PM on August 11, 2004


Leprosy is hilarious as long as it's happening to somebody else. The site is funny even though it's happening to my political view.

Therefore you are wrong.

Good post, Konolia - nice to see the other side have a sense of humor for once.
posted by Ryvar at 3:50 PM on August 11, 2004


I thought it really was funny. Who the fuck cares who did it, can't you laugh at yourselves for one second, just this once? I've enjoyed seeing moveon stuff and seeing moveon folks speak before. It doesn't mean I can't laugh when I see someone mock them.

I often find biting satire to be funny, not mindless parody without any salient points behind it. Come on, what's funny about any of that? Are Michael-Moore-is-fat jokes funny? No, but jokes about people who resort to them are. Is the bush=hitler non-story funny when people keep repeating it ad nauseum? Not unless you're making a point about the people who use such tactics, not mimicking them to make a "funny" point. What about the stupid jokes about lonely leftists online making up the memberships (I'm not a member, to be clear)--I mean, come on, how old are people-on-the-internet-are-just-lonely-nerds jokes? That stopped being all that truthful when everyone's parents ended up online, e-mailing each other lame jokes.

I mean, seriously, if you're going to go to that much trouble to make fun of people who want Rumsfeld out of office (see, it's funny that they blame the administration for Abu Ghraib and want them fired!! ROFL), you might as well do it cleverly or with some sense of comedic timing, something The Onion is very well known for.

Then again, I'm a card-carying leftist, so why would I think it's all that funny if I don't see that much truth in it, at least not in the majority of the content. Usually I think something is funny when I see some truth in it, not just some baseless MAD-esque parody.
posted by The God Complex at 3:59 PM on August 11, 2004


first rule of metafilter:

1. don't laugh at parodies of leftist websites
posted by angry modem at 4:03 PM on August 11, 2004


I'm a fan of dumb parody. Heck, I even did it myself, mostly mocking both a rockstar I like (Dio rulez!) and a politician I probably would have voted for (Dean).

I loaded the site up, read the headline and mildly chuckled. It's kinda funny. But everyone crowing on about how it's national lampoon and trying to one-up each other on how unfunny they consider national lampoon is a lot funnier.
posted by mathowie at 4:03 PM on August 11, 2004


More republican humor at gopfun.com. Yup, that's some funny, funny stuff.
posted by milovoo at 4:06 PM on August 11, 2004


This thread is like a bunch of drag queens trying to outfab eachother.
posted by angry modem at 4:08 PM on August 11, 2004


Oh you go, girl!
posted by Ryvar at 4:10 PM on August 11, 2004


Then again, I'm a card-carying leftist, so why would I think it's all that funny if I don't see that much truth in it, at least not in the majority of the content.

Actually the mark of brilliant comedy would be that it makes you laugh even if you completely disagree with it or it makes you uncomfortable. Laughter is generally a spontaneous response. That's why we laugh at shit that's offensive or anti-our beliefs.

Someone once said "Having a sense of humor is the ability to take a joke, not make a joke."

Learn to laugh at yoursleves, and maybe we can bust the stereotype of the humorless liberal.
posted by jonmc at 4:18 PM on August 11, 2004


So ... theoretically there must be an an example of undeniably funny Republican humor somewhere, maybe a Dennis Miller clip? or did Rush Limbaugh get rolling one day and really get funny? Hannity? O'reilly? The Bush himself? Anyone want to link to an example, because I think it may be a myth. I promise I'll laugh if it's funny.
posted by milovoo at 4:29 PM on August 11, 2004


If you show me a list of Kerry's stupid comments or pratfalls or blatant gaffes, I'd probably laugh at them just as I do the ones for Bush.

Lemme ask you something, XQ, and I swear I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm just curious. Did you laugh at any of the Clinton-Lewinsky jokes back in the day?

I know I did. And I voted for Clinton twice and I'd do it again and I think the impeachment was bullshit.

But some of the jokes were funny, even though Clinton was my candidate. To this day, Phil Hartman's "Clinton at McDonalds" breaks me up.

milovoo: I don't know that it's so much a case of Republicans being funny per se, just that there's plenty about both Conservatives and Liberals, and the various personalities within both that's good comedy fodder. And that's what comics do, make fun of the make funnable.
posted by jonmc at 4:35 PM on August 11, 2004


See, I'm what's probably considered an "extreme leftist", and I can laugh at myself, I think, and I'm pretty sure I have a great sense of humor. But I didn't find this funny because it wasn't true, it wasn't me-- it parodied stereotypes and non-issues.
posted by nath at 4:39 PM on August 11, 2004


agreed nath, it was mildly chuckleworthy at best, but the larger issue makes for interesting discussion.

I remember an old Callahan cartoon showing a man at a bookstore counter getting yelled at by an angry woman saying "This is a Feminist bookstore. There is no humor section!"

Several self-declared feminists I know thought that comic was hilarious and a few feminist bookstores have hung it on their wall.
posted by jonmc at 4:42 PM on August 11, 2004


Intercepted by warlords!
posted by PrinceValium at 4:44 PM on August 11, 2004


I think a big part of it is also humility, Jon Stewart is one of his own worst critics and to hear him describe himself you would think that he was incompetent to host a network show, so when he makes a complex zinger, you laugh even before he does.

On the conservative side, when you claim your mandate directly from god and admit no mistakes, the humor just doesn't flow as easily, does it?

Some of the best comedy is aimed at deflating gasbags and pompous jerks and while there are some on the liberal side, they aren't usually put in charge.
posted by milovoo at 4:49 PM on August 11, 2004


jonmc, I have a sense of humour, trust me. I laughed at some of the Lewinsky jokes (if they were good, most weren't) and made some myself, and if I was an American I would have voted for him twice. I also thought some of the Dean stuff was funny, but it would have been funnier if it didn't turn into a media feeding over a fairly innocuous situation.

I'm a fan of dumb parody. Heck, I even did it myself, mostly mocking both a rockstar I like (Dio rulez!) and a politician I probably would have voted for (Dean).

I loaded the site up, read the headline and mildly chuckled. It's kinda funny. But everyone crowing on about how it's national lampoon and trying to one-up each other on how unfunny they consider national lampoon is a lot funnier.


Yeah, I don't care that much if it's from National Lampoon, because I haven't really read anything from them (I'm only 22--from what I know they were already on the downswing by the time I was born). I just thought it would have been funnier if they'd executed it differently. Hell, even the blame-rumsfeld-for-everything thing may have been funny if the actual article was, you know, funny, if it made fun of newspaper syntax the way The Onion does and had some funny quotes or something. Instead it smacked simply of partisan politics and took an angle I happen to vehemently disagree with, so it doesn't strike me as all that funny.

The Daily Show makes fun of John Kerry a lot and I usually think it's pretty funny--his wooden mannerisms, etc. This one just isn't for me.
posted by The God Complex at 4:50 PM on August 11, 2004


while there are some on the liberal side, they aren't usually put in charge.

Excuse me?

Ted Kennedy? Gary Hart? Al Gore? Al Sharpton? Jesse Jackson? Bill Clinton?

These men (whom I feel varying degrees of political affection for) are all walking comedy waiting to happen?

Bush Sr. invited Dana Carvey to the white house after seeing his imitation on SNL. It shows that maybe he possessed a sense of humor about himself. I still wouldn't vote for the man or trust him with aused condom, but it makes him seem human, definitely.
posted by jonmc at 4:56 PM on August 11, 2004


My retorts:

1) The reason for bagging on National Lampoon is that, while they were certainly a force in American comedy during the '70s, now they're just a brand. And not just a brand, but an actively negative brand, one that further drives down the value of what they do. I anticipate that if the Onion's still around in thirty years, it'll be the same way.

2) I'm all for satire of moveon.org -- the notion of taking a piss out of them would be fair game. But the jokes are just kinda...lame, really. There's so much more that could have been done with a vicious parody of -- well, anyone, really, but the way they those to do it is just tired. IMHO, of course. It has nothing to do with not being able to laugh at oneself (if one identifies with moveon.org, of course), but rather the quality of the joke. It just seems conceptually half-assed -- which follows most of NL-derived comedy in the 21st century, such as SNL or the Simpsons. It's lazy, it's snide without being angry, it's just kinda weak mockery based on lazy media-afflicted tropes.

3) Conservative comedians: won't ever happen. Comedy is, by definition, a subversion and rupture of the status quo. When conservatives attempt to be funny, it almost always becomes bullying mockery, because that's the nature of conservatism: get back in line, you liberal fag.
posted by solistrato at 4:58 PM on August 11, 2004


those cox and forkum comics are a hoot! did you see the one that said all muslims were extremists? oh ho ho ho ZAP!
posted by mcsweetie at 4:59 PM on August 11, 2004


some funny jabs at liberal icons:

Dennis Leary of Teddy Kennedy:

"Ted kennedy. A good senator but a bad date."

"They Killed JFK. They Killed RFK. They looked at Ted and said 'ah fuck it, he'll do it himself."

Jon Lovitz's Dukakis imitation.

"My parents were little people. little swarthy people."

MAD TV's Jesse Jackson post affair "Mrs. Jackson" video.
posted by jonmc at 5:05 PM on August 11, 2004


And the reason making fun of liberal icons is important: liberalism is supposed to be at least partly about smashing sacred cows, so we can't spare our own.
posted by jonmc at 5:11 PM on August 11, 2004


while there are some on the liberal side, they aren't usually put in charge.

Excuse me?
Ted Kennedy? Gary Hart? Al Gore? Al Sharpton? Jesse Jackson? Bill Clinton?


... don't forget Kucinich.

I guess that seems somewhat true, I mean all these guys do have comedy potential, and in fact Jon Stewart does some great Ted Kennedy bits, but from seeing them on cspan and the news, they just don't come off as people needing to be taken down a notch. Bumbling sometimes, nerdy sometimes, even obnoxious, but not nearly so arrogant or full of themselves, as a real conservative.
posted by milovoo at 5:15 PM on August 11, 2004


they just don't come off as people needing to be taken down a notch.

I dunno if that's neccessarily the point. Comics before anything else are there to make you laugh. If they can't do that, then they're simply lecturers. Which is why I distrust anyone who makes one political ideology the focus of their humor. The best comic artists of the left (Garry Trudeau, Norman Lear, Gorge Carlin, Dennis Miller back in his early days and I won't even mention Jim Goad.) mocked liberal pieties and hypocrisies as mercilessly as they did conservatives.

Well, almost. Even I'll admit conservatives give them more material to work with.
posted by jonmc at 5:26 PM on August 11, 2004


what milovoo said.
posted by destro at 5:29 PM on August 11, 2004


those cox and forkum comics are a hoot!

No kidding. The book collection of them is called "Black and White World". Seriously. And that's a pretty good summary of what you need to know about them.

(Also, on the topic at large, Solistrato is pretty spot on.)
posted by nath at 5:34 PM on August 11, 2004


30 years ago, NatLamp ran a fullpage Volkswagen ad with a Beetle demonstrating its legendary ability to float on water. The caption: "If Ted Kennedy drove a VW, he'd be President today." That was a political skewering all but the most tightass thought was funny.

But this cringeworthy mess -- the partisan humorlessness comes from the site, not from the audience. Teen chat logs are cleverer and funnier.
posted by nikzhowz at 5:47 PM on August 11, 2004


Speaking as a resident of the country that pretty much invented satire, I don't think this is funny.

Nothing to do with the politics, it just ain't got it.
posted by i_cola at 5:57 PM on August 11, 2004


agreed, i_cola. My crticisms are more with the justifications other people used for their criticisms.

Reading that last sentence back makes me think I need to lie down.
posted by jonmc at 6:01 PM on August 11, 2004


The Daily Show and some of Michael Moore's gimmicks...

Kindly don't lump the Daily Show together with the Rush Limbaugh of the left.


those cox and forkum comics are a hoot!

Those fuckers! I bet this one's much more to your taste.
posted by Krrrlson at 6:12 PM on August 11, 2004


Nothing to do with the politics, it just ain't got it.

Thanks for summarizing that well. I thought that I was going to turn into a character from the Mr. Show "Indomitable Spirit" sketch:

"NO! You're not a shitty drummer because you have one arm. If you had two arms or 40 arms, you'd still be a shitty drummer."

mathowie: I loaded the site up, read the headline and mildly chuckled. It's kinda funny.

You said earlier that it was hilarious, and insisted that you weren't being sarcastic. So which is it? If it's hilarious, I hope that you carry a spare pair of underpants in case you see The Family Circus.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:20 PM on August 11, 2004


Woah, I'm finding myself agreeing with jonmc. */me squints at coffee suspiciously*

Though, the jokes on this one were pretty lame. I guess I shouldn't expect too much from National Lampoon these days.

Now, what would be funny would be a headline like "MOTEL SEX KETCHUP FIASCO! KERRY CAUGHT CONDIMENTING HIS KRAUT!" or something. Michael Moore fat jokes are just too, uh... broad of a target.
posted by loquacious at 6:36 PM on August 11, 2004


Woah, I'm finding myself agreeing with jonmc.

It happens to everyone eventually. Join in me in beer & pocky?
posted by jonmc at 6:59 PM on August 11, 2004


Metafilter: I hope that you carry a spare pair of underpants in case you see The Family Circus.
posted by amberglow at 7:02 PM on August 11, 2004


Join in me.
posted by swift at 7:08 PM on August 11, 2004


Repeat after me : everything is funny

...one way or another.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:23 PM on August 11, 2004


most were those who Saddam Hussein and his Fadijin would have rested away

wrested (And Fedayeen? And wouldn't it be "whom"?)

Is National Lampoon still staffed with Harvard grads? (What am I saying - Bush went to Yale *and* Harvard.)
posted by NorthernLite at 7:36 PM on August 11, 2004


I don't think the site was supposed to be laugh-out-loud funny; I think they were simply mocking the move.org organization-in that they were successful.
posted by konolia at 7:40 PM on August 11, 2004


OK, XQ, fair enough.

I agree on the funny quotient of this particular site, just wanted to test a theory. I'm glad you proved me wrong, for what it's worth.
posted by jonmc at 7:45 PM on August 11, 2004


jonmc: Pockybräu? Woah there, I don't know if I'm ready for that. I don't know if the world is ready for that.

*takes sip*

What is this magnificently delicious slop and where can I get enough to coat my entire body?
posted by loquacious at 2:26 AM on August 12, 2004


I read Metafilter to get my laughs.

There's no one on earth funnier than hama7.
posted by nofundy at 5:29 AM on August 12, 2004


"Everybody funny. Now you funny too." - George Thoroughgood
posted by sharpener at 11:44 AM on August 12, 2004


I read Metafilter to get my laughs.


There's no one on earth funnier than nofundy.

;)
posted by Dreamghost at 12:04 PM on August 12, 2004


Metafilter: Get back in line you liberal fag!

Solistrato, you just made my week!
posted by ubi at 1:33 PM on August 12, 2004


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