C.S. Lewis Jr.'s Revenge

David Weigel | October 2, 2007

The Onion's never as funny as when it satirizes effete liberal stereotypes that they think right-wing rednecks harbor about effete liberals. Thus, this video about country singers rooting for al Qaeda victory in New York. Missed satire opportunity: None of the country singers are named "Dinesh D'Souza." (This comes via HotAir, who remind us that Michael Moore actually published a 9/12/01 essay asking the terrorists why they attacked a city that didn't vote for Bush.)

Funny (especially the more specific "psst, put the poison here" bit of the song), but not as perceptive as this immortal Mr. Show sketch.

There's American history between October 2001 and March 2003, in convenient "humor" form.

Comments

|10.2.07 @ 6:24PM|#

Not ass good as this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phSd9t9vdvo
(relates to streaking story a couple of days ago)

|10.2.07 @ 6:30PM|#

C.S. Lewis Jr. might be the best Mr. Show character ever, after Senator Tankerbell.

"Big Dumb Ape."

|10.2.07 @ 6:40PM|#

"We're Earthlings, let's blow up Earth things." I could get behind that.

Nuke the Moon was first with this, of course.

stephen the goldberger|10.2.07 @ 6:55PM|#

c.s. lewis jr's good but he's no f.f. woodycooks

|10.2.07 @ 6:56PM|#

C.S. Lewis Jr. might be the best Mr. Show character ever, after Senator Tankerbell.

"Big Dumb Ape."

Horace Loeb has him beat by a mile.

iih|10.2.07 @ 7:09PM|#

I can't get the first clip to work.

|10.2.07 @ 7:20PM|#

I couldn't either iih.
go to it's source:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/country_music_stars_challenge_al

That worked for me anyway

|10.2.07 @ 7:20PM|#

*its source

Paul|10.2.07 @ 7:28PM|#

Michael Moore actually published a 9/12/01 essay asking the terrorists why they attacked a city that didn't vote for Bush.)

Michael Moore may actually believe that Al Qaeda conceived, planned, and executed the attack because of Bush. He may also actually believe that Al Qaeda hates paleocons who, like Al Qaeda, dislike homosexuality, public nudity, freedom of speech, Maplethorpe photos and a host of other things that paleocons and Al Qaeda types see eye-to-eye on.

Anonymo the Anonymous|10.2.07 @ 7:45PM|#

And the other, longer C.S. Lewis Jr sketch (actually post-Mr. Show): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skch4zKdKbc.

Brian Sorgatz|10.2.07 @ 7:46PM|#

Whenever I think of Mr. Show, I think of the Satanic televangelist program.

iih|10.2.07 @ 8:08PM|#

Reinmoose: Thanks.

Hilarious.

Balloon Maker|10.2.07 @ 8:31PM|#

"We got a lady over there churnin buttah. A man over there dippin candles, and over there a naked puppet doin a lascivious fandango on the lap of a grown man. It's a pioneer porn shop in here."

-Senator Tankerbell (paraphrased)

Nasikabatrachus|10.2.07 @ 9:35PM|#

Balloon Maker:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y8eLvKBWrI0

|10.2.07 @ 10:17PM|#

My favorite Mr. Show character has always been the learning-by-billiards guy, Van Hammersly.

"...and that's when Lincoln said, 'Don't diss my homies!'"

Syloson of Samos|10.2.07 @ 10:29PM|#

The post-invasion Iraf situation.

|10.2.07 @ 11:36PM|#

It's like that moment on Da Ali G Show when Borat leads a roomful of redstaters in singing some dreadful, Anti-Semitic song. Smug "social critic" types (like the sages of snark at Entertainment Weekly) love to cite the Borat moment as an example of just how asinine the masses really are; it never occurs to them that just possibly, the audience was in on the joke...

|10.2.07 @ 11:50PM|#

The Onion's never as funny as when it satirizes effete liberal stereotypes that they think right-wing rednecks harbor about effete liberals.

I thought harboring stereotypes about effete liberals was at least one definition of a right-wing redneck.

emerson|10.3.07 @ 12:26AM|#

"just possibly, the audience was in on the joke."

No, no they weren't. Maybe they're not anti-Semitic, just excessively accomodating to a foreigner. But then again, maybe they're anti-Semitic. They certainly were NOT in on the joke though.

|10.3.07 @ 1:02AM|#

but not as perceptive as this immortal Mr. Show sketch

Huh? Maybe there's a joke here I didn't get (quite possibly several) I thought "Bomb NY again" was pretty good, but the "blow up the moon" gag totally unfunny and not even a clever concept (well I did git half a giggle over "We're Earthlings, let's blow up Earth things.")

|10.3.07 @ 1:05AM|#

When he says "Children are our future" he sounds like a real government type or politician giving that all too familiar pretext for real government boondoggles.

BTW, Full disclosure: I also watched, three times consecutively, just the part where the gal says that we should blow up Earth stuff cuz I think she's kinda cute.

|10.3.07 @ 1:24AM|#

Unlike the scene in the vid, if the Moon did blow up we for sure wouldn't hear it, at least, until any debris hit our atmosphere...but if it did, we would quite likely experience a mass extinction.

|10.3.07 @ 1:38AM|#

Gee, what if there was no Moon...? BTW, can anyone think of a song that references the existence of the Moon without actually saying "Moon"? What? Why yes! In fact I can!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbMYwuAHK_4

|10.3.07 @ 1:47AM|#

...I just thought, perhaps that mass extinction isn't so for sure after all cuz I neglected that the debris might be hitting the Earth with a lot slower velocity than the celestial stuff that's caused mass extinctions previously.

|10.3.07 @ 2:11AM|#

Rick, approximately 50% of the Moon's mass hitting Earth even at a few hundred MPH would still be a Very Bad Thing.

|10.3.07 @ 2:43AM|#

"Immortal"? I like a lot of the stuff on Mr. Show but like Warren I think this sketch is pretty thin gruel.

JINGOISTIC COUNTRY SINGERS LOL

|10.3.07 @ 6:22AM|#

I also watched, three times consecutively, just the part where the gal says that we should blow up Earth stuff cuz I think she's kinda cute.

That's Sarah Silverman, isn't it?

Asharak|10.3.07 @ 8:20AM|#

The Onion video isn't too far off. I've seen commenters at Little Green Footballs and "Free" Republic hope that New York and other east coast cities will be nuked by al-Qaeda. Yet they still shed crocodile tears over 9/11.

|10.3.07 @ 8:31AM|#

yes it is Sarah Silverman. Also, the girl that plays Chloe on 24 was a regular on Mr. Show.

Asharak|10.3.07 @ 8:49AM|#

There are a couple of idiotic comments about the video on HotAir as well, although to be fair, the idiots who posted them are being called out on it.

|10.3.07 @ 9:59AM|#

Michael Moore actually published a 9/12/01 essay asking the terrorists why they attacked a city that didn't vote for Bush

This is plainly, demonstrably untrue. You could look at the essay yourself and see what he actually said:

If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!

He's obviously not "asking the terrorists" anything, rhetorically or otherwise. He's not even assuming that they did attack because of Bush.

I really have to wonder about people who would stretch the truth to make us believe that there are traitors in our midst when there really aren't.

Damian P.|10.3.07 @ 10:24AM|#

He's not even assuming that they did attack because of Bush.

I don't see how you can read that bit and not think that's what Mikey was assuming. (Moore quickly excised the essay from his website, by the way.)

Space Monkey|10.3.07 @ 11:22AM|#

It's pretty funny reading the HotAir comments. Most of them think it is some voice for people who hate terrorism but really do hate New York. As if The Onion is some sort of Cletus T. Judd.

Stephen Colbert and now this.

Maybe Leno ratings are due to really hip people laughing at his caricatures of unfunny jokes.

|10.3.07 @ 11:33AM|#

Jack:

approximately 50% of the Moon's mass hitting Earth even at a few hundred MPH would still be a Very Bad Thing.

Yeah for sure. I was considering just one chunk, the size of the one that brought on the KT extinction event 65 million years ago.

|10.3.07 @ 11:51AM|#

Which is why nuking the Moon makes more sense than destroying it. Sheesh.

|10.3.07 @ 11:58AM|#

Randolph Carter:

yes it is Sarah Silverman.

Oh, she's like a star, huh? I guess that sorta diminishes the likelihood that she's gonna wanna email me and thank me for the compliment and get to know me.

|10.3.07 @ 12:02PM|#

Pro Libertate,

Nuking it instead of destroying it?

|10.3.07 @ 12:14PM|#

Yes. I'm pretty sure that we could launch the entire world's nuclear arsenal at the Moon without doing much more than damaging the surface. What Nuke the Moon advocates are proposing is to simply launch a few nuclear warheads at the Moon. To demonstrate that the U.S. is crazy dangerous and must not be messed with.

|10.3.07 @ 1:05PM|#

While I didn't watch the video's, I have to proclaim Neil's defense of Moore's 9/12/01 musings the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Good job Neil.

|10.3.07 @ 1:19PM|#

My vote would go to Droopy (guy at the beginning of the video). As a bonus, this clip also has Mary Lynn Rajskub as the creeped out donut clerk.

|10.3.07 @ 1:47PM|#

Pro Libertate,

Ok-got it. And I think that your damage assessment sounds right.

|10.3.07 @ 2:10PM|#

Rick,

It is somewhat disappointing. We should have the power to blow up the Moon, at the very least. I mean, it's the 21st century, after all!

Paul|10.3.07 @ 2:11PM|#

Neil, we did read the essay. Let me loosen the edit a bit:

In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all.

The Senators and Congressmen tonight broke out in a spontaneous version of "God Bless America." They're not a bad group of singers!

Yes, God, please do bless us.

Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!

No one is calling Michael Moore a traitor. Moore's comments are being pointed out for what they are: A flailing screed where he suggests that Al Qaeda attacked us because of Bush, then (rightly so) cries out that the terrorists...ahem, fucked up... because they killed a bunch of people who didn't vote for Bush.

No one here is stretching the truth at all.

|10.3.07 @ 4:35PM|#

This all seems derivative of the "buck o-five" song in "Team America: World Police".

|10.3.07 @ 9:07PM|#

ChrisO, the sketch aired in 1997.

|10.4.07 @ 5:11PM|#

If what he said was really so damning, you wouldn't have to misrepresent it. He was bemoaning the needless deaths of innocent people and you tried to make it sound like he was saying that he wanted al-Qaeda to kill Bush voters.