Comedy and the NDP leadership race

Singh looks like a Cossack, for some reason.

hitler meme hits the topp campaign http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtU_898DyhA

As I said a while back, the Downfall meme never gets old. :D  I guess the Mulcair campaign has figured that out too!  Funny video.

Disgusting and not amusing. And your comment is nonsense.

But the Brian Topp clip was real, and it was simply embarrassing when I saw him say that in real time. True, I wasn't drinking tea at the time...

Well my initial post did specify that "was-supposed-to-be-funny" is also fair game for this thread. So thanks for posting, because we don't always get a chance to see this stuff.

I watched the Rick's Rant, the first one Michelle. I personally didn't find it very funny it even felt 'forced'. I guess I don't believe a leadership competition has to be like some kind of choreographed drama designed to draw in voter interest like an insecure actor, waving his hands. Did you notice by the way how much Mercer physically moves - the hand waving?

It is Mercer's job to entertain, or educate me, with irony and the like, and he did neither. I didn't find him engaging except in the same way someone finds the three stooges engaging, but Mercer has 1/5 the talent of those three - for me, he's a famous guy wearing expensive clothes, entering the camera view in a carefully choreographed manner, against a graffiti 'everyman' backdrop in the inner city (for effect), practicing hand movements and polite hystrionics. If this weren't a Canadian I think people would be saying Who is this glib nobody with no talent for comedy writing?

No wonder they had to use a laugh track. If he presented that in Vegas he'd get boo'd, it is just plain poor comedy writing. And the last line "If you can't engage voters, you don't deserve voters" I'd be interested to hear what others think of this remark. It reminds me of poor teachers in school who resorted to entertainment in an effort to reach the students who didn't give a damn.

The 22 Minutes segment was fun. The writing was a little better, and even if the people weren't themselves actors, the stiff host with his own agenda and odd, rude manner was amusing - PN was great MS had a laugh, and the Mulcair pieces were great - I could tell his mouth was actually readying to speak as the announcer cut him off, it was priceless.

AFAIK Mercer doesn't use a laugh track for the rants - they play the tape in front of the same live audience that comes for the filming, who laugh/applaud on cue, and record that into the final broadcast. At least that's what they did the time I once saw Mercer in the first few seasons of the show.

I find Rick Mercer to be a completely unfunny, self-aggrandizing, pompous knob, unlike the show which he left, which continues on occasion to be funny and engaging.

Nom nom nom...you don't mind if I eat while you talk, do you?

Here's an old song (circa 1795) for the convention.

Tom, Tom was a piper's son,

He learned to play when he was young.

And all the tune that he could play

Was over the hills and far away;

Over the hills is a great way off.

The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

Tom with his pipe made such a noise,

That he pleased both the girls and boys,

And they all stopped to hear him play,

'Over the hills and far away'.

Tom with his pipe did play with such skill

That those who heard him could never keep still;

As soon as he played they began for to dance,

Even the pigs on their hind legs

would after him dance.

As Dolly was milking her cow one day,

Tom took his pipe and began to play;

So Dolly and the cow danced 'The Cheshire Round',

Till the pail was broken and the milk ran on the ground.

He met old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs,

He used his pipe and she used her legs;

She danced about till the eggs were all broke,

She began for to fret, but he laughed at the joke.

Tom saw a cross fellow was beating an ass,

Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass;

He took out his pipe and he played them a tune,

And the poor donkey's load was lightened full soon.

Me too. I just watched the RMR Fourth Ballot Deodorant video clip thanks Lefty here and again, the guy just isn't a funny comedian - he tries with costume in this one and a hair do, but his humour in this one just strikes me as glib and stupid, there's no theme except for his silly personal stereotypes on what NDPers 'must be' like.

Now the 'nom nom nom' piece, that was funny - it was quiet and understated like the sound of chewing maybe, I mean it accomplishes so much with so little it's awesome.

IP, I never saw that clip before and must have missed that one. But you are so right - he used "her" to get at "him" - the different ways one could have "read" what Rick was trying to suggest is low and cheap.

I like all the Mercer clips, but the Jaffer-Duncan one, while it would be funny if Duncan really was a name-on-the-ballot-only like many of the NDP MPs who got elected in Quebec, is just factually incorrect, and therefore misses the "funny" mark to anyone who knows that she actually campaigned like hell and was no paper-only candidate.

In fact, I'd even say that it is sexist - showing a picture of the female winner and joking that she filled out a card at the shopping mall and was told she won.

I don't discount his other videos, though, because of it.  I thought the Fourth Ballot Deodorant one was great.

Aaaand one more for the road...