When somebody in the entertainment industry says something wrong and offensive, I feel it my duty to speak out and give that person a good talking to. Recently, Comedian Conan O’Brien received complaints from a TV affiliate in Kentucky over a spoof of the TV show – Lost. In this sketch, Conan O’Brien had his plane crash and he washed up on shore.
This led to complaints from local affiliates in Kentucky, who are still covering the most recent airplane crash that left all of the passengers dead and the co-pilot in critical condition. KLEX President and General Manager Gilbert said he’ll complain to NBC, but he said an apology won’t make up for insensitivity. “They could have killed the opening and it wouldn’t have hurt the show at all,” Gilbert said.
This leads me to my complaint: Mr. Gilbert – one does not use the term Kill An Opening, especially after so many innocent people have lost their lives. I expected more from people, even if they are TV executives.
Other inappropriate expressions include:
“That joke fell flatter than Comair.”
and
“Conan’s sketch could have used another 3,000 feet of runway.”
However, we will dismiss this offensive remark since it’s so hard to keep track of all the latest tragedies. We at IMAO will petition TV stations for greater sensitivity towards Kentuckians. We will also ask them, as a courtesy to Kentuckians, to not feature any shows where young women sleep with their brothers unless it’s a necessary plot twist for Desperate Housewives.
Remember folks – Let’s try to be a bit more sensitive: Because being sensitive to the feelings of others is what IMAO is all about.
I’m glad to see the stand you’ve taken on this important issue, RWD. We can never grow as a people until we reach the point that we know in advance every tragedy that will happen so we can write our television sketches to avoid anything that vaguely references said tragedies. We should probably also not remind people of past tragedies either, and just to be safe, “tragedy” should be defined as anything worse than slightly-too-dark toast. Actually, let’s just abolish entertainment of any kind.
Thanks RWD! Not enough people are sticking up for the very sensitive feelings of our comedians.
But I thought IMAO was all about killing ninjas…
Wrong Gunga. It’s about Killing Monkeys!
Hey!
Uh, all about killing monkey faced liberals.
Not Spacemonkey.
//Because being sensitive to the feelings of others is what IMAO is all about.//
Are you kidding!? Well, of course you are. I wouldn’t even come here so often if I didn’t get to see someone get verbally kicked in the ‘nads now & then.
That’s the fun of having emotionally imbalanced trolls around!
Ok that’s better.
Hey Rear Wheel Drive,
If 49 people in YOUR town had just been smeared across a field and somebody was cracking wise about it (even unintentionally), wouldn’t that get under YOUR skin?
To put another point on it, did it tick you off when Ray Nagin made a crack about a “hole in the ground” in New York? Why is that?
The Ray Nagin question is moot. Everyone knows that retarded people have poor impulse control. I wonder if Ray is going to actually place in the NO Special Olympics this year. He really got cheated last year.
DE – as someone with poor (OK, NO) impulse control, OUCH! Why me laugh?
If Hellen Keller killed a monkey in space, would it make a sound?
If Hellen Keller killed a monkey in space, would it make a sound?
Strangely enough, I can see my 6 year old son asking me that question. He’s really into space right now and he’s always asking me questions like “if an astronaut had to go to the bathroom in space but there were no bathrooms, and he got ejected from the space shuttle, would he explode?”
Hey Beo,
No one is saying the crash is a joke, but you can’t possibly edit out everything offensive. The local station should be in charge of that if they feel so strongly about it.
And the comment by Nagin was intentional, the O’Brien thing was not.
Gunga,
But you’re special in a way Ray Nagin isn’t. Low impulse control != Retarded.
Retarded = Low impulse control = Ray Nagin = The idiots that voted him mayor again.
If 49 people in YOUR town had just been smeared across a field and somebody was cracking wise about it (even unintentionally), wouldn’t that get under YOUR skin?
If they were people I cared about it probably would upset me, but that would be my problem and not the network’s or the local affiliate’s problem. It’s not their responsibility to concern themselves with the full spectrum of sensitivities the audience might have.
did it tick you off when Ray Nagin made a crack about a “hole in the ground” in New York?
That was not said as a joke, but rather to deflect criticism away from himself. I think he’s right about ground zero. We should already have the new, improved and taller twin towers in place. That has nothing to do with the situation in NOLA that Naygin botched up, though. If someone told me I screwed up, big time, it serves no useful function to point out that some other guy screwed up too. Nor is it relevant.
A very good point from FIAR. Taking the time to make someone else look bad in an attempt to make yourself look less incompotent is just cowardice. Nagin dropped the ball , too. It wasn’t merely a state & federal snafu, as he would have his constituents believe.
I think he’s been drinking too much chocolate milk; it’s giving him brain freeze.
Frank,
Great one liners, although the kentucky siblings marriage joke has passed the worn out catagory. However, for those of us who lost friends and family on that plane(I lost four friends); we would have appreciated Conan and his producers editing out his airplane crash. Call us oversensitive, but it struck us as an example of placing greed and poor taste ahead of respecting the dead.
Comparison:
Canada:
Kiano Reeves, Eugene Levy, Michael J. Fox, Jim Carrey, Matthew Perry, DHT, EA Sports, Ubisoft, Nintendo, ATI, Logitech, Steve Nash. Invented in Canada: basketball and hockey…
USA:
George Bush
Are you still here?
I thought we were done with the penis measurements, but I suppose you like handling them so much you keep trying to total the Canucks to equal Bushes. Give it up.