What the Madison transplants have produced is a strange subspecies of sketch comedy (which is itself a suddenly resurgent genre, with two other offerings coming down the pike: MTV’s Human Giant and Fuse’s The Whitest Kids U’ Know). ONN’s central conceit, which requires the cast to impersonate generic “types,” fails so spectacularly it almost makes one forget Fox News Channel’s The 1/2 Hour News Hour. In the flagship clip, inspired by Lou Dobbs’s fear-mongering on CNN, a Mexican migrant worker becomes a major corporation’s CEO and reduces his Waspy predecessor to bussing tables. Beyond the obvious flaws — some dude’s pale imitation of Dobbs, a setup so broad it could have come from medieval puppetry — the piece is guilty of one huge, and symptomatic, missed opportunity. We don’t get to see the guy, who speaks no English, run the company. That would, of course, (a) be funny and (b) require visual thinking. As it stands, it’s an Onion print story, mirthlessly pantomimed. Never thought we’d say this, but we’d much prefer some footage of the real Lou Dobbs.
Immigration: The Human Cost [Onion News Network]
Earlier: They Reportedly Tell Jokes, You Decide Whether to Laugh