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Death Is Not An Option

zuzu

I believe it was the late, lamented Spy that used to run a feature called ‘Death Is Not An Option.” The idea being that you had to choose between two equally bad options for sex — and death was not an option. So, George Bush and Pol Pot? Tom DeLay and a cockroach? Leslee Unruh and Caitlin Flanagan? You get the idea.

Ladies and germs, I present to you, Death Is Not An Option — the Adam Corolla and Donald Trump edition!

Thanks ( I think) to Shakes.

56 thoughts on Death Is Not An Option

  1. As long as I’m allowed to wear earplugs, I’ll take Adam Carolla. Carolla is at least annoying/obnoxious in a familiar frat boy kind of way, so I’d know what to expect (namely, three pumps and done). I can’t even imagine what the fuck Trump would be into.

  3. Tom DeLay and a cockroach?

    This is a tricky one. On the one hand, I get this annoying skin rash whenever a cockroach touches me…

    Are we talking a regular-sized cockroach, or a giant, human-sized one?

  4. Yow, that’s a tough one.

    But I think I’d take the Donald. Carolla’s teeth, monobrow and grating nasal voice are just too much to bear on the air (teevee or radio). I can’t imagine the pain it would bear in person.

    Trump though is easy pickin’s. I’ll bring a good book on Feminist theory, (suggestions taken) as I’d have plenty of reading time on my hands after taking away his medical potency aids.

  6. Carolla’s teeth, monobrow and grating nasal voice are just too much to bear on the air (teevee or radio)

    I bet the unibrow counts as alternative C.

  7. Adam Corolla. If the man’s cock is as small as his personality would suggest, the sex wouldn’t even count, right? Isn’t there some rule about having to actually feel it?

  8. No. No. No.

    I would take the supersecret cyanide pill I have hidden behind my back teeth.

    Death is always an option when you’re pretending to be a spy.

  9. Did you read the Adam Corolla link?

    Yep. Still choose Carolla, because it would be over faster. With the Donald, we’d have to spend a lot of time making small talk waiting for the Viagra to kick in.

    Don’t get me wrong. Carolla is a gigantic asshole. I may be more inured to his stupid shit, because he got his start out here on local Los Angeles radio and I actually remember him from his very early schtick as shop teacher Mr. Bircham, on a very juvenile morning show on KROQ that I’ve been listening to for so long (going on 20 years) that I just can’t break the habit no matter how bad it gets. And it gets pretty damn bad.

    Let’s put it this way: the Kevin & Bean show went downhill when Jimmy Kimmel left. Seriously.

  10. Caitlin Flanagan or Leslie Unruh?!

    Caitlin Flanagan, anyday. She’s frustrated- maybe I could help? >) Plus I seem to have a history of getting with people that have the same first name as me. Caitlin’s are freaky.

  14. Because I am a guy I would go with the person I could get the most mileage afterwards, since spies are sometimes sent to discredit/destroy a person. Corolla would mean nothing, since most would attribute the sex to years of putting up a front and finally finding his gay outlet he’d been secretly yearning for. Where as doing the deed with Trump, well I guess I would get to run to a tabloid and start the real estate baron version of Ted Haggard. That would make such things worth the effort, especially to see the Rosie try to suppress her smile for months to come afterwards.

    Even if I was woman I think I would go Trump. Should the affair come light(which it will), he would likely have trouble with his marriage. This could mean divorce and a nice lump of change for his current wife. At the very least and extended period of lavish gifts for said wife while he tries to buy his way back into good graces like Kobe did.

  15. I pick the Donald, because I’m insanely curious about that combover. Like, does it hang down to his knees when he’s in the shower? Exactly how many times does it wrap around his head?

  16. I just watched Natural Born Killers last night, and had to suffer from an over-active imagination working on the idea of getting raped by Rodney Dangerfield. Over that retch-fest, I’d saddle up The Don and ride him gleefully into Carolla’s man-gina. *shudders uncontrollably*

  18. Plus, and this is just my guess, I bet Donald Trump goes down. I bet Adam Carolla looks at you like you asked him to eat dog shit and says “Eating pussy is for fags.”

  20. Why all the hate for Adam Corolla?

    I listened to Loveline on the radio for nearly a whole year (working night shift at a hotel) and sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person on Earth who detected the really obvious pro-woman, pro-feminism subtext to his comedy.

    People – The Man Show was satire. Like the way Stephen Colbert isn’t really a conservative. Corolla put boorish male behavior out there to be ridiculed.

    That’s why the show tanked when Corolla and Kimmel left and they brought in those other two clowns. The show stopped being about subverting male boorishness and became a celebration of that – which is a hell of a lot less funny.

    It’s just amazing to me that he gets no respect from feminism after his years on Loveline. But I guess if you didn’t “get it” about the Man Show, you’d think he was some kind of pig.

  21. God, I don’t know why anyone would think he’s a pig. From a recap of one of his recent radio shows:

    7:27 DR. GARY ALTER

    Dr. Gary Alter, board certified urologist and plastic surgeon extraordinaire, enters the studio. Danny’s shocked, because Adam skipped over this guy’s number one credit, which is of course “gender reassignment.” That’s not all he does though, Gary says, and Teresa chimes in that he also does a lot of “labia-plasty”, where they actually reduce the labia. Labia size wasn’t a problem earlier in our society, where trimming of pubic hair wasn’t commonplace.

    Adam’s curious, what will they be doing in 15 years, plastic surgery wise, that they aren’t doing now? Gary’s been doing a lot of clitoris enlargement and clitoris reduction.

    Another common operation, Gary says, is to “reclaim foreskin.” He thinks it’s insane though, and Adam locks in on that. “Hear that guys? The dude who turns men into women thinks you are crazy.”

    7:53 TRANNY OR FATTY?

    Today’s hypothetical question is a simple one, and it’s one that the show has actually covered before. Would heterosexual men rather sleep with a post-op transsexual, or a fat woman? Sadly, Adam has to note, the last time they talked about this, it skewed largely in favor of the transsexuals.

    Danny has to say at this point that he’s heavy into the heavies, and that he might actually prefer it. Teresa wonders what the heaviest girl he’s been with was? 250 pounds, he says.

    While Adam’s not into the big women, he has actually ended up in bed with a larger women. Long story short, they were seated together in a booth when they met, and it turned out she lived in another town, so they had a bit of a long distance thing going on via telephone. One day, he took the plunge and drove out to where she lived in a buddy’s car, and when she opened the door… there was a whole lot of women standing there. “Maybe she was on an Ovaltine drip since I’d last seen her,” Adam adds. At that point, you can’t back out, so he just got to boozin’ and went at it.

    Oh, not a pig, no.

  22. He’s coarse, yeah, but pig? I guess I don’t see it. At this point it seems like he’s just playing along with what’s expected on morning radio. But, it’s possible he’s changed since I was listening to him and watching the Man Show.

    Trump? That’s a pig. Much respect to Amanda Marcotte, but come on – there’s no way the Donald is going down on you. Asking Donald Trump to be concerned about your orgasm gets you a one-way ticket down to the lobby, where you pass your replacement (half your age) on her way up.

    At least Corolla does what you tell him, if Zuzu’s examples are any indication.

  23. Let me quote Shakespeare’s Sister on this:

    What is perhaps the most charming quality of this fun little game is that it’s designed not to reinforce the perception that fat and trans women are not real women—that they are sub-human is taken for granted. It’s really designed to be a fun way for straight men to insult each other no matter what their answer. If you go for the Fatty, you’ve got no taste, but at least you’re not a fag! If you go for the Tranny, you’re probably a total homo, but at least you’ve got standards! And any man who would voluntarily fuck a fat girl or MTF is, of course, a complete loser freak.

    As appalling as it is that there are individual people in this world who have not the slightest compunction about dehumanizing fat and trans women for fun, consider how deeply fucked our culture is that this detestable swill, which has quite literally no purpose other than exploiting hatred for shits and giggles, can be broadcast with impunity, but if Carolla said the word “fuck” over the airwaves, the station would be fined thousands and thousands of dollars. By any objective measure, hate speech is exponentially more toxic than “dirty words,” but while there are plenty of people who will argue that they don’t want to hear “dirty words,” and don’t want Teh Children to hear “dirty words,” there aren’t nearly as many who object to piggish bullies like Carolla having a laugh at the expense of fatties and trannies. Fatties and trannies are meant to feel ashamed of themselves, after all.

    I guess you agree.

    No big deal, right? Just playing along with what’s expected?

  24. Why all the hate for Adam Corolla?

    Because douchebags like him stink. Some things are simple.

    I hate Lovelines with a burning, seething passion. We had a really cool show on the radio here with Dr. Judy who gave out sex advice and they dumped her for Lovelines, which wasn’t as funny a show and had terrible advice and was sexist to boot.

  26. I hate Lovelines with a burning, seething passion. We had a really cool show on the radio here with Dr. Judy who gave out sex advice and they dumped her for Lovelines, which wasn’t as funny a show and had terrible advice and was sexist to boot.

    Oh, my, yes. I remember an episode on bisexuality–and this wasn’t further back than 1998, if that–when Dr. Drewchebag told a caller who identified as bisexual that, yes, being bisexual meant that you were sexually confused and immature.

  27. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

    If the girls jumping on trampolines didn’t clue you in, well, maybe you can find the manufacturer’s address for your satire detector and send it back, because it’s pretty clearly defective.

    Zuzu:

    All Corolla is saying is something we all know is true, and that I’ve heard on Feministe and Pandagon innumerable times – transsexuals and the overweight don’t fit society’s standards of sexual attractiveness. Gosh, have the guy impaled, I guess.

    Look, I’m not saying that I’ve followed every element of his career. But if you didn’t see the satire that underpinned every episode of The Man Show for as long as Corolla was at the helm, you weren’t looking close enough. And considering how obvious it was that’s saying something. The constant homoeroticism implied, actively, between Corolla and Kimmel? Parody of boorish male homophobia. The girls on trampolines? Satire of how easy it is to pander to a male audience.

  28. All Corolla is saying is something we all know is true, and that I’ve heard on Feministe and Pandagon innumerable times – transsexuals and the overweight don’t fit society’s standards of sexual attractiveness. Gosh, have the guy impaled, I guess.

    No, he’s playing Death Is Not An Option — which of these two completely, inherently undesirable categories of people who don’t even deserve to be called human would you fuck if you had no choice?

    Which is not what we’re saying here at Feministe and Pandagon at all. But I suppose the point is lost on someone who thinks the Juggies are Swiftian.

  29. If you really can’t see any difference between Corolla – who set male privilege up for the pratfall for as long as I was listening to him – and Trump, who uses every one of the vast resources at his disposal to preserve the legitimacy of male privilege, then we’re at loggerheads, I guess.

  30. The Donald, because if I had to go with Corolla, I would probably rip his annoying little head off before we could even get started. Now, granted, I hate DT almost as much, but at least I could attempt to sell the story to a tabloid or something and at least get some money out of it.

  31. Oh, my, yes. I remember an episode on bisexuality–and this wasn’t further back than 1998, if that–when Dr. Drewchebag told a caller who identified as bisexual that, yes, being bisexual meant that you were sexually confused and immature.

    Heh, I’m surprised he didn’t say it was a product of child abuse. I recall him pronouncing just about everything from fantasies about multiple partners to a fondness for tattoos as clear evidence that the caller was abused.

    Having said that, I actually thought Carolla was kind of funny on Loveline. I’ll acknowledge he’s declined since. (Although his hangup on Ann Coulter was a great moment.)

  32. Look, I’m not saying that I’ve followed every element of his career. But if you didn’t see the satire that underpinned every episode of The Man Show for as long as Corolla was at the helm, you weren’t looking close enough.

    Uhhh… The notion that The Man Show was satire literally did not occur to me until I read your comments. I suppose you could look at it that way, but I never really saw the over-the-top stuff as being true satire.

    Why not? Look at the audience. You mention that the Colbert Report is similar to The Man Show in its mode of humor, but the Colber Report’s audience is clearly on the “liberal” side and Colbert always tips his hand toward it with a choice use of words. Now think about The Man Show’s audience. They weren’t laughing at the ridiculous stereotypes and satire. They were laughing with them. Shows that are satire let the audience in on the joke and the audience’s composition and reactions clearly indicate that they know what’s going on. The Man Show’s audience, to the best of my knowledge, never displayed this sort of behavior.

    You just have to question how someone who is supposedly using satire can be so misunderstood all the time. In addition to the quotes in this thread, here’s a good one:

    Carolla’s morning show became the subject of a minor controversy within a few weeks of airing when on January 24, 2006, Carolla played a segment which spoofed the upcoming Asian Excellence Awards, which honor Asian American media accomplishments. The spoof consisted of what sounded like a typical excerpt from an awards show, except that the dialogue of the actors consisted only of the words ching chong, repeated over and over. (The actual award show was conducted in English.) Branding the segment as demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations (including the NAAAP) threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show if the station did not issue an apology. [4] [5] On February 22, 2006, Carolla without fanfare read a brief apology for the segment, in which he said that his show had regrettably “crossed the line”.

    So, was he satirizing racists here? Sorry, but nothing I’ve ever heard him talk about has hinted at satire.

    Do you by chance think Sam Kinison, Rodney Dangerfield, and Tim Allen’s “men do this, women do that” bits are all satire? Because I know some people who pretty completely subscribe to the views on marriage and love in their routines… and quote them all the time as justification.

    It’s not satire.

  34. If you really can’t see any difference between Corolla – who set male privilege up for the pratfall for as long as I was listening to him – and Trump, who uses every one of the vast resources at his disposal to preserve the legitimacy of male privilege, then we’re at loggerheads, I guess.

    Jesus, Chet. You’re not actually being asked to choose between them; it was a framing device to introduce two completely hideous sets of remarks from the idiots.

  35. Sorry, Chet. Real satire doesn’t accidentally slide into the thing it’s “satirizing”. Stephen Colbert’s show isn’t going to accidentally turn into the O’Reilly Factor.

    What you have on your hands is false irony. Much like when Ann Coulter says she wants to blow up the NY Times building and writes it off as a “joke”. Not really ironic. She really does hate them and the guys on the non-ironic “Man Show” really are pigs. They just happen to be pigs who feel that piggery is mildly ridiculous, just not so ridiculous as to be ashamed to be pigs or anything.

  36. I will defend Chet (and Carolla) to this point: I do think that Carolla is trying to lampoon male piggery. The problem is that, frankly, he’s not very good, either as a writer or a performer. He’s trying to do a Sarah Silverman-type thing without being nearly as smart or as deadpan as she is. He doesn’t know where the line is, so he keeps flailing around trying to find it. Silverman has an exquisite sensitivity to where the line is and dances over it so lightly you don’t even know she’s crossed it until she taunts you with it.

    And who is Sarah Silverman’s boyfriend of several years? Jimmy Kimmel. Who is Carolla’s longtime friend and sometime writing partner.

    Jimmy, by the way, when he was on the radio out here in Los Angeles, always claimed that he was still living at home with his mom and trying to break into show business. It was a HUGE surprise when he got divorced from his first wife, because he delivered the story so convincingly and never broke (what turned out to be a) character.

  37. Now think about The Man Show’s audience. They weren’t laughing at the ridiculous stereotypes and satire. They were laughing with them.

    No offense but I don’t see how you could know that unless you’re reading minds through the TV. I know when I saw the Man Show’s audience, I saw a lot of women in the audience – which, again, is another thing that tipped me off to the satirical intent.

    You just have to question how someone who is supposedly using satire can be so misunderstood all the time.

    Stephen Colbert is regularly mistaken for a genuine conservative pundit. Plenty of people fall for Sasha Baron Cohen in both his Ali G and Borat guises. And, to be honest, when Joe Rogan et al. took over the helm of the Man Show, it did cease to be satire – those guys were 100% earnest, which is why people stopped watching the show.

    Look, I always and immediately percieved it as satire, for reasons that were so obvious to me that I was surprised to find anyone who disagreed.

    But then, I’m convinced Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” is supposed to be an intospective monologue by Santa Claus. (Who else would have miles to go in a horse-drawn sleigh on a snowy night?) Everybody tells me that it’s about the universal human death-wish, or something, but I’ve never been able to see it that way.

    All I’m saying is, there’s room for perception.

    Jesus, Chet. You’re not actually being asked to choose between them;

    Isn’t that what everybody’s doing? I guess I don’t get it.

  38. Jesus, Chet. You’re not actually being asked to choose between them;

    Isn’t that what everybody’s doing? I guess I don’t get it.

    Well, explaining a joke is always an ugly process, but if you really want, here goes. Anyone who doesn’t like to see humor dissected, please skip this comment.

    It’s sort of a satire of the whole Death Is Not An Option; instead of a long lecture on the insult of picking out an entire category of people for the “joke” of suggesting that suicide would be better than sex with anyone in that category, it’s demonstrating it by making the guy who make the original joke the butt of the joke. The exaggerated disgust is pretty much standard for “Death Is Not An Option” and the very thing Corolla was “satrically” trying to provoke. It’s also, as mentioned, a framing device to highlight the original objectionable joke. as well as Donald Trump’s remarks.

    If you keep in mind that most of the people on here probably see Adam Corolla’s Man Show the same way you see Joe Rogan’s and are inclined to give him that much credit for “the joke doesn’t mean what it looks like it means,” it makes sense.

    Perhaps you could explain how setting up fat girls and trannies as two comically disgusting images is a satire on male privilege?

  39. Arrghhh…

    If we are going to spend 38 and counting comments on someone, could we at least spell his name right? It’s CArolla. He’s not a Toyota.

    As far as the Man Show goes, it was, in my opinion, attempting to be satire, or at the very least it was winking at the image it was portraying. It wasn’t satirizing male privilige, it was satirizing male piggishness. If you recall, FX put out a similar show called “The X Show” at the same time. The X show was relentlessly misogynistic, and dead serious about it…and nobody watched it.

  40. I’ve never seen The Man Show, but my friends who did watch it thought it was satire.

    You just have to question how someone who is supposedly using satire can be so misunderstood all the time.

    For the same reason people criticize Stephen Colbert, Sarah Silverman, and Sasha Cohen.

    Many people are easily offended, many have no sense of humor, and many just aren’t very bright. For some poor souls, it’s all of the above. They refuse to believe that they just don’t “get” it. They instead claim that there’s nothing to get, and there’s something wrong with those who do get it.

  41. No offense but I don’t see how you could know that unless you’re reading minds through the TV. I know when I saw the Man Show’s audience, I saw a lot of women in the audience – which, again, is another thing that tipped me off to the satirical intent.

    Sorry. Just because some women will do anything to please men and prove they’re not like all those *other* women who don’t have a sense of humor doesn’t mean that the show was successful satire.

    It may have had pretensions, but it was more along the lines of a lampoon, not a satire. And please. Comparing Carolla to Colbert?

  42. I pick the Donald, because I’m insanely curious about that combover. – Vanessa

    Did you see the MadTV episode that parodied Charlie and the Chocolate factory with Donald Trump as a Wonka-esque figure and Leona Campbell gets to inheret Trump’s empire (and gains his hairstyle) by being honest about how bad it is?

    *

    As to the issue of whether the Man Show was/is satire: it is possible to satirize something yet still be in agreement with the object of your satire …

  43. So, I’ll do something I really didn’t want to do and admit that my husband watched the man show, which unless I felt like going to bed early meant that I was also subjected to it. It is not and was not ever satire. People like my husband will laugh their assess off because they think it’s funny, not because it’s ironic or making fun of common male stereotypes. I have explained to the husband over and over again how the show is demeaning to women, how he would die if it was me, his sister, his mother, or our daughter being portrayed in that light and all he says in response is “It’s just a joke, don’t take things so seriously” or “Well, no one is making them be on the show”. I finally told him that if I was up I did not want to be subjected to that swill and he stopped watching it, but make no mistake, it is most certainly NOT satire. It celebrates everything that is wrong with stereotypical male and female roles, dismisses women as nothing more than sex objects and mocks everyone who doesn’t fit into their prescribed roles. I hate that show and I despise Adam Carolla.

  44. People like my husband will laugh their assess off because they think it’s funny, not because it’s ironic or making fun of common male stereotypes.

    Making fun of stereotypes can be funny.

    Here’s an example. There was a series of episodes where they were holding tryouts for new “Juggies”. They’re interviewing women and asking questions like “What are the most important things to you?” You know, interview questions.

    One woman starts to answer “The things that are most important to me are my two children-” and POP! She disappears (editing trick.)

    It’s a joke. They’re lampooning how men are expected to find motherhood so unsexy that as soon as a woman starts talking about her children, it’s like she stops being an entity who could possibly be sexually relevant. Which is obviously unfair and boorish.

    I thought it was hilarious satire. But, look, if you’re convinced that the only women who went to see the Man Show did so as slaves, or whatever, and that there’s no such thing as self-effacing humor used to subvert male boorishness, I can see how you wouldn’t get it. But I still can’t see how anybody sees thrice-married Trump as less of a misogynist than Carolla. Or are we just supposed to compare them on the basis of these two contrasted articles?

  45. Chet, to reiterate the point you were avoiding: the fact that something can be satire doesn’t mean it is satire. “Oh, we were just joking” is the first refuge of a bigot whose rock just got kicked over.

    But, look, if you’re convinced that the only women who went to see the Man Show did so as slaves, or whatever,

    That argument is so lame you couldn’t even keep it up without a handwaving “or whatever” at the end. There are plenty of women who are exceptionalists; it’s OK if men make fun of those women because they’re different and I am special. “Well women laugh too!” So what?

  46. Well, maybe it’s just a difference of perception, because the scene you just descibed to me is hideously sexist, doesn’t strike me at all as satire or even remotely funny and seems to reinforce the “woman with two kids cannot possibly sexy” steroetype. I don’t even see how it could possibly be read as mocking that sterotype. But what do I know, I’m just a humorless feminist with two kids who thinks that particular stereotype is offensive. Plus it has the added benefit of planting ideas like “Wom, my wife can’t possibly be as sexy as these women” in the heads of men watching it.
    On the other hand, I think Trump is also hideously and disgustingly misogynist as well, and at least equal to Adam Carolla in this area. Not because of the three marriages thing, but because he really appears to see women as property, which is a pretty disturbing trait. Given the choice between the two, if I had to have sex with one, I really can’t imagine who I would choose, but either one would require a long, hot shower and therapy afterwards.

  47. Many people are easily offended, many have no sense of humor, and many just aren’t very bright. For some poor souls, it’s all of the above. They refuse to believe that they just don’t “get” it. They instead claim that there’s nothing to get, and there’s something wrong with those who do get it.

    Thank you for the flattering compliment. I’m happy to know that you consider me and most other people in these comments to be easily offended, stupid, and not having any sense of humor. And you wonder why no one here really appreciates your input… you think so highly of us all.

    Well, maybe it’s just a difference of perception, because the scene you just descibed to me is hideously sexist, doesn’t strike me at all as satire or even remotely funny and seems to reinforce the “woman with two kids cannot possibly sexy” steroetype. I don’t even see how it could possibly be read as mocking that sterotype.

    I agree. Though I would like to hear how the rest of the skit played out. If, in the end, they ended up hiring a skeleton or something (“she’s so thin! And no kids!) then I could consider it to be satire.

    I know when I saw the Man Show’s audience, I saw a lot of women in the audience – which, again, is another thing that tipped me off to the satirical intent.

    So did I. But, oddly enough, I came to the opposite conclusion as you. I would like to add that when I did sometimes watch this show I was back in high school and was not, by any means, liberal or aware of feminist issues. By my standards today I was pretty conservative and moderately misogynist back then. And I still didn’t see it as satire. I saw it as pandering to stereotypes.

  48. The skit that I remember most vividly from the man show is one where they are passing around a petition opposing womens suffrage. (Apologies for the lack of an apostrophe, my key is broken) They are trying to get women to sign it, preying mostly on uneducated women or women who speak little to no english and laughing behind their backs about what idiots women are. I would be intensely curious to know what sterotypical male behavior this was mocking.

  49. Here’s an example. There was a series of episodes where they were holding tryouts for new “Juggies”. They’re interviewing women and asking questions like “What are the most important things to you?” You know, interview questions.

    One woman starts to answer “The things that are most important to me are my two children-” and POP! She disappears (editing trick.)

    It’s a joke. They’re lampooning how men are expected to find motherhood so unsexy that as soon as a woman starts talking about her children, it’s like she stops being an entity who could possibly be sexually relevant.

    Got to say, even if this makes me a touchy, humorless idiot in your view, I don’t see it as a joke on how boorish the men’s attitudes were. From the sound of it, they’re laughing at the women who don’t fit their idea of sexy, such as mothers (or in Death is not an Option, transwomen and the overweight), but dare to consider themselves as attractive anyways. It also seems to be a comic wish-fullfillment deal, sort of “Wouldn’t it be fun if we could make all the women we didn’t find hot just disappear?”

    Which is obviously unfair and boorish.

    It looks to me like your whole argument that it is a joke rests on the idea that it’s obvious enough how unfair, boorish, and sexist they’re being that it must be satire and not an endorsement. And that’s not the vibe I get from what I’ve seen of Adam Carolla.

  50. I felt like The Man Show was split: Adam Carolla was way too into the culture he was supposedly lampooning, whereas Jimmy Kimmel was skewing for more Colbert-esque satire.

  51. The skit that I remember most vividly from the man show is one where they are passing around a petition opposing womens suffrage. (Apologies for the lack of an apostrophe, my key is broken) They are trying to get women to sign it, preying mostly on uneducated women or women who speak little to no english and laughing behind their backs about what idiots women are.

    See, I remember that one, because it may be the only episode I watched, and there was the start of a good joke in there. Doing something about the number of people who sign a petition without understanding or thinking about the cause could be funny. But then they started including women who obviously didn’t speak much English, and it got to be just sort of ugly and embaressing. I also remember they included one woman who understood what suffrage meant, and objected to them trying to trick a confused women who had poor English, because she talked about feminism and sexism, and she was shouting.

    Feminism and shouting. Geddit?

    But that was apparently a send-up of male behavior…somehow.

  53. How About:

    TEDWARD KENNEDY or ROSIE O’DONNELL for the ladies,

    DONNA SHALALA or an 800# GORILLA for the guys.

  56. zuzu, can’t you send this one back to play at Free Republic? It’s quit even trying to make sense. Any minute and we’ll be hearing about the Clenis.

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