An heads up in the Guardian today for anyone who hasn't come across The Best Show on American TV (best show that is, not prefixed by the letters CS and I). The article manages to stay afloat despite the best efforts of the fucking useless hack journalist to sink the entire thing by blasting giant stupid-holes in his writing.
Surely, surely, there has to be a more enlightened, interesting way of describing an alien show/figure/concept than to throw it haphazardly between two generic pop-culture equivalents. For the love of all that is holy, someone lend that man a simile.
In one terrifically awful paragraph Gary Younge manages to describe The Daily Show as 'somewhere between Have i got news for you and the Fast Show' (bollocks is it... but i digress.) and its wisecracking ring-a-ding-ding frontman Jon Stewart as not only 'less blunt than michael moore but more politically engaged than late night hosts david letterman and jay leno' but also as combining 'the irreverence of Chris Evans with the wit of Armando Ianucci'. And yet despite this tidal wave of useless name dropping our man (clearly with one too many copies of the Radio Times lost in his unconscious) is not yet done; just for good measure, we are informed that The Onion 'a spoof magazine that blends the best of Viz and private eye'. The best of Viz and Private Eye eh? So that would be the Spoof parts would it?
Not only is all of this completely irrelvent to our understanding of these assorted american institutions but they're hopelessly patronising to boot. Are we all so culturally imprisoned? Treat us with the a bit of respect. The kind of respect that has won the Daily Show such high acclaim.
And for those who haven't yet, watch it.
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