The Jeff Dunham Show

If there's anything I learned from Comedy Central, it's that getting your very own show is the kiss of death for comedians. When comedians are hosting their own show, their jokes suffer, and they often go on an obvious comedic backslide, noticeable even in comedians that weren't terribly funny to begin with. For example, before Mind of Mencia, Carlos Mencia was just terribly annoying, while Mind of Mencia actually made me want to punch a wall whenever I heard Carlos's voice.

Jeff Dunham is no Carlos Mencia. He's not a Dane Cook. Jeff Dunham is a man who, even if his act isn't funny, it isn't unbearable. If I see a Jeff Dunham stand up act, I don't immediately turn it off. Indeed, I think he can be quite funny at times, particularly using his "Peanut" or "Walter" characters. Sure every now and than he pulls out a lame character that relies entirely on a stereotype, but some of them have their moments ("Achmed the Dead Terrorist" or "Jose Jalapeno"). Than you have the ones that are just straight unfunny ("Sweet Daddy Dee" or "Bubba"), but it's ok, because during those segments you can just get up and make a sandwich, and by the time you get back, Walter will be taking questions from the audience. In the shows that I've seen of Dunham, his unfunny puppets are usually pushed behind Walter and Peanut, who are usually enough of an antidote to remedy the likes of Sweet Daddy Dee or Bubba.

Enter The Jeff Dunham Show, a sketch comedy show I knew would be a complete disaster the moment I saw the commercial.

How bad?

Basically, take everything that made Jeff Dunham funny, shunt it to the background. Now, take everything that made Jeff Dunham unfunny, bring it forward, and magnify tenfold.

You've got The Jeff Dunham Show, where Bubba and Sweet Daddy Dee soak up way too much screentime, Achmed does nothing but scream "I KILL YOU!" for 15 minutes, and Peanut and Walter are rendered just as painfully unfunny as the rest.

In the episode I saw, Walter went to a day spa, and didn't even bitch once! What's that about?

I personally, am a big fan of Jeff Dunham. His specials are cute and funny. His show is absolutely atrocious. Jeff was offensive in silly and random ways. The show rendered his act into a xenophobic, racist, sexist show delivered in a stupid and unfunny way with no real continuity to it aside from "MY PUPPETS , AND THEREFORE MYSELF, ARE DOUCHEBAGS." It's stupid, and I hate to see Jeff's career suffer for it.

I will say though, Demitri Martin's and Daniel (I think thats his name) Tosh's shows are actually not too cringeworthy. I'm a fan of Demitri, not so much of Tosh but both shows are bearable to watch when nothing good's on. Oh well.

I think that the writers for the show are working completely outside of Dunham, though. He likely has no actual say in this material. That is my story and i'm sticking to it.

Borderline racism= Comedy Central show

When I heard it was canceled and failed miserably after the second episode I went out into the streets and thanked God that people weren't nearly as stupid as I thought they could be.

Jesus. wrote:

I personally, am a big fan of Jeff Dunham. His specials are cute and funny. His show is absolutely atrocious. Jeff was offensive in silly and random ways. The show rendered his act into a xenophobic, racist, sexist show delivered in a stupid and unfunny way with no real continuity to it aside from "MY PUPPETS , AND THEREFORE MYSELF, ARE DOUCHEBAGS." It's stupid, and I hate to see Jeff's career suffer for it.

I will say though, Demitri Martin's and Daniel (I think thats his name) Tosh's shows are actually not too cringeworthy. I'm a fan of Demitri, not so much of Tosh but both shows are bearable to watch when nothing good's on. Oh well.

I think that the writers for the show are working completely outside of Dunham, though. He likely has no actual say in this material. That is my story and i'm sticking to it.

I like Jeff Dunham's stand-up, too. But I would agree that his show is pretty crappy and deserved to be cancelled. Though I'm not one to say that it should have been canceled because it's offensive (I'm not easily offended at all), just because it wasn't that funny. That said, did anyone else notice that they turned Walter into a racist and homophobe on the show? It didn't work out too well... "A hood is like a black guy?" Sorry, but no.

Demitri Martin's show is pretty cool. And Tosh.0 is pretty hilarious.

Jesus. wrote:

I personally, am a big fan of Jeff Dunham. His specials are cute and funny. His show is absolutely atrocious. Jeff was offensive in silly and random ways. The show rendered his act into a xenophobic, racist, sexist show delivered in a stupid and unfunny way with no real continuity to it aside from "MY PUPPETS , AND THEREFORE MYSELF, ARE DOUCHEBAGS." It's stupid, and I hate to see Jeff's career suffer for it.

I will say though, Demitri Martin's and Daniel (I think thats his name) Tosh's shows are actually not too cringeworthy. I'm a fan of Demitri, not so much of Tosh but both shows are bearable to watch when nothing good's on. Oh well.

I think that the writers for the show are working completely outside of Dunham, though. He likely has no actual say in this material. That is my story and i'm sticking to it.

I haven't seen Demitri Martin's show, but I love Demitri Martin, and Tosh is an anomaly because he got the reverse. I actually think he became funnier hosting his own show.

I also liked Chapelle's Show (from what little I saw of it), but other than that, no. Even Lewis Black's show wasn't that funny (and I love Lewis Black), but I think that suffered more from too much B-Listers, not enough Lewis Black.

Quote :

That said, did anyone else notice that they turned Walter into a racist and homophobe on the show?

Actually, Walter was already a racist and a homophobe.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Quote :

That said, did anyone else notice that they turned Walter into a racist and homophobe on the show?

Actually, Walter was already a racist and a homophobe.

The idea of there being something in the universe that Walter didn't hate would be a bit OOC. The trick is making it funny.

To paraphrase Rome, "I didn't know this existed, until it didn't." Really, what about Dunham's standup act says that it needs to be transformed into a TV show?

You people like his stand up? WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

gaijinguy wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Quote :

That said, did anyone else notice that they turned Walter into a racist and homophobe on the show?

Actually, Walter was already a racist and a homophobe.

The idea of there being something in the universe that Walter didn't hate would be a bit OOC. The trick is making it funny.

To paraphrase Rome, "I didn't know this existed, until it didn't." Really, what about Dunham's standup act says that it needs to be transformed into a TV show?

The fact that last year, Dunham got tremendously popular, so Comedy Central decided it would be profitable.

Than they realized people aren't really that stupid.

Dick Powers wrote:

You people like his stand up? WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

KNOW WHAT'S FUNNY [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

(Post count +1, incidentally.)

gaijinguy wrote:

Dick Powers wrote:

You people like his stand up? WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

KNOW WHAT'S FUNNY [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

(Post count +1, incidentally.)

Aziz Asari is funny. Jeff Dunham's a hack whose routines haven't changed in 20 years.

Dick Powers wrote:

You people like his stand up? WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

DO NOT LUMP ME IN WITH THOSE PEOPLE.

I wish Jeff Dunham would get get boned.

Fake edit: ON A DEEK

I like his stand-up in small doses, when I'm in the mood. But that show was so completely fucktarded and boring. I completely lost interest in it before the first commercial break.