“A kid watches it because he likes Bart and he thinks it's silly and fun, and an adult likes it because there's a really great Iran-contra-hearing joke in there.”
Conan O'Brien
Carl Schrag: “you can bring a comedian to Toronto for four nights, but you can't predetermine the kind of publicity he'll generate. By the time O'Brien returned to New York, the English-language Canadian press was embroiled in an uncharacteristically ugly spate of soul-searching, finger-pointing, and brow-beating, as they heaped scorn on those responsible for inflicting the "racist" comic on the country.”
Because TV is drugs, and I don't have cable (okay yes, I would've watched it if I did, so there's no need to call my on my hypocrisy), I didn't get to see the "offending" routine, but through the marvel of Internet technology, news of row travelled at least as far south as the ATL, where Photodude notes that a scandalized audience is exactly what comedians want. Andrew Coyne says that anybody who calls Triumph (and the person that plays him, as well as the people who pays his salary) racist is being ridiculous and, essentially, "please stop k thx". read more →
