Aw Jeez, Will Ya Look At This?

Norman Lear (I thought he died years ago!) will return to the small screen, writing episodes of South Park. "Among the subjects he hopes to mock on the show are the U.S. push for war in Iraq, reality TV shows and immigration." Stop, Norman, yer killin' me! Just more proof of my thesis that it's 1973 all over again.

Comments

[Mark S.]

Mocking Immigration? I thought that a being a good liberal, Norman wouldn't dare attack that institution. Or has he joined the knuckle-dragging ,populist, Big Labor Leftists who complain that good `Merican jobs (i.e. jobs that should go to white people) are being given to "dem dere wetbacks?"

[Kevin Carson]

Although Lear sometimes mocked Meathead's sanctimony and his guilty-white-liberal hypocrisy, still the show was all too often a rigged match between right-thinking Mike and straw-man Archie. And Mike's views on everything were as predictable, stereotyped NPR liberal as Archie's were predictably of the Spiro Agnew/troglodyte variety. Gawd, I hope Cartman doesn't break out into one of those PSA-style Meathead lectures: "Do you know...."

My favorite Archie-ism was "Ah, listen to the Polack professor! Everybody knows Denmark ain't a state--it's the capital of South Dakota!"

[Warren]

"I always thought one of the best things about South Park is that it didn't have the sanctimony..."

Sanctimony? I could accept pretentious, but I always found AITF anti-sanctimonious. I still think the first three years of Family are the best social commentary in situation comedy form ever produced. While I find South Park clever and funny, I am not a fan of it's toilet humor. Unlike Family, where derogatory racial terms were necessary for character authenticity, much of South Park's humor strikes me as simply a unabashed race to the bottom, base for base sake.

[James Merritt]

>>>(Meathead holding a baseball bat)

Archie: "Now what are you going to do with that? Bunt him to death?"

Norman had his moments of clarity.

-Ranald

[Lonewacko]

- Lear co-sponsored Arianna's anti-SUV commercials, despite driving an SUV and having a 21-car, 4-story garage that blocks his neighbors' views: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/820375/posts

- Lear was supposedly upset that most Americans liked Archie, rather than his goal of having them consider him more like Spiro.

- Cesar Chavez was opposed to illegal laborers, he "was as effective a surrogate for the INS as ever existed": http://www.vdare.com/sailer/la_causa_or_la_raza.htm

- I critique a Reason article on immigration here: http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/000293.html#000293

[Steve]

Hey, Kev. Dat's Denmark, Nort Dakota, ya Meathead!

[Dean]

The problem is that South Park has become more and more sanctimonious over the years. Every single episode now seems to include some extended political soliloquy. It hardly needs any more sanctimony.

Taking on Norman Lear could really be a (another?) "jump the shark" moment.

[James Merritt]

>>>- Lear was supposedly upset that most Americans liked Archie, rather than his goal of having them consider him more like Spiro.

[Brian]

80-year-old Norman Lear has a 14-year-old son.

And now he's writing for South Park.

Hey, this guy is living my dream.

[Ranald H.]

(Meathead holding a baseball bat)

Archie: "Now what are you going to do with that? Bunt him to death?"

Norman had his moments of clarity.

[Jesse Walker]

Yeah, I like some of those early All in the Familys. But I always thought one of the best things about South Park is that it didn't have the sanctimony of Lear's shows -- that we'd turned some sort of corner in televised social satire. Oh, well.

[Russ]

Yeah, South Park actually mocks sanctimony. I hope we don't get "A Very Special South Park".

[Jim N]

I mean, there's the irreverence toward religion (though never a straight condemnation of it, dammit)

Yeah, what the show really needs is some bigotry towards religious people. Also the spics and the gooks.

[Sandy]

I don't see how Norm could fit in with South Park. They are not a very lefty bunch. They basically stood up for Starbucks against local coffee shops, derided Jon Edwards, the incredibly lame TV psychic, as "the biggest douche in the Universe," lampooned alternative medicine (what will Shirley McClaine think?), had a Forbidden Bugs Bunny-style episode, suggested that Black America has some awfully rich folks crying poor, ridiculed Whoopi Goldberg's humor, came out in favor of the rights of the Boy Scouts to exclude gays, and essentially called the Earth Day crowd a bunch of lefty brain-washers.

I mean, there's the irreverence toward religion (though never a straight condemnation of it, dammit), and evil, money-loving Cartman gets his commupance (occasionally), but really, if this show has a political slant it's pretty libertarian, not liberal. Norm may find himself a fish out of water, no matter how much they love his mone^H^H^H^Hcompany. I mean, they made fun of Spielberg taking guns out of his movies, for cryin' out loud.