![]() ![]() Smigel, best known for Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, as well as TV Funhouse, a regular cartoon segment parodying public figures and pop culture, is also responsible for the much-touted, highly laughable segment "The Ambiguously Gay Duo." It used to be funny to me - a gay woman in her mid-30s who has been out for 15 years and who appreciates a good lampooning as much as, well, Al Franken and Lorne Michaels, two of Smigel's regulars on TV Funhouse. ![]() On the other hand, Robert Smigel, it's your turn at the mike. Tracey Morgan's rant was a blip on my mental radar - in and out like the Eminem lyrics that caused a media maelstrom ten years ago. What this Tracy Morgan debate completely missed, however, was the more duplicitous stylings of comedy aimed at LGBT people these days. But Tina Fey gave Morgan a verbal smack down, Morgan apologized and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) gave the controversial comedian the coveted gay pass by granting him a spot on its upcoming "Amplify Your Voice" anti-bullying public service campaign.Īll's well that end's well in Tracy Morgan land. Same with the joke about stabbing his kid to death if he came home and announced "I'm gay" in a fey voice. In fact, I thought his reported line saying, "bullied kids should just bust some ass and beat those other little f*ckers that bully them, not whine about it," utterly ridiculous. Or - and I am not going to pull punches here - funny. Because I am about to defend Tracy Morgan, the most LGBT-hated man in comedy this week, and speak out against another harmful form of humor: the gay parody.īelieve me when I say I don't find Morgan's alleged bashing of gays at a Tennessee nightclub last week harmless. I think.Okay gays, pull out the rotten tomatoes, aim straight at your computer screen, and fire. ![]() Anyway, where else are you gonna find a show that combines Robert Goulet and Hootie and the Blowfish cameos with a cartoon called “Porn For Kids”? Nowhere. The show didn’t last long, probably more due to Smigel’s hugely diversified workload than ratings woes, but it’s more than worth a look for fans of his more popular SNL toons. And who could forget the kid-friendly Black Sabbath Show with their lovable sidekick Doom Doom the Dog? There’s the recurring trio The Baby, the Immigrant, and the Guy on Mushrooms, who get impressed by anything and everything. There’s Mischievous Mitchell, a terribly racist version of Dennis the Menace whose theme song includes the immortal lyric, “Hateful but adorable, it's really quite deplorable.” Wonderman is a superhero who uses his awesome powers to get his puny human alter ego laid. The cartoons here are just as great as their more popular Saturday night counterparts, first class salutes to the Hanna-Barbera-esque animation we grew up with that just happen to be incredibly filthy. But unlike the former’s tendency toward edgy provocation, TV Funhouse sought only to bring the funny. Like Wonder Showzen, TV Funhouse used the primary color banality of kids’ shows as a springboard for its adult-oriented hijinks. Cartoons interspersed the action with unrelated, similarly inappropriate content. Usually Chickie, the stir-crazy chicken member of the group, would get in some kind of trouble-like trying to rediscover his heritage in Tijuana and nearly being pecked to death at a cockfight, or attempting to buy a bride in Atlantic City only to get his thumb cut off by a pimp-and Dale and the rest of the Anipals would attempt to save him. TV Funhouse was hosted by Smigel regular Doug Dale, who wore a different ridiculous getup each week depending on that episode’s theme (ten gallon hat for Western Day, lei and grass skirt for Hawaiian Day) and conversed with his cast of Anipals, a splendid array of animal puppets voiced by Smigel and his friends Jon Glaser (Stroker from Stroker and Hoop) and Dino Stamatopoulos ( Mr. It’s doubtful that you’re as familiar with the eight episode series Smigel produced for Comedy Central in 2000. Sedelmaier that he dubbed “Saturday TV Funhouse.” It was his biggest success yet, giving us The Ambiguously Gay Duo, Fun With Real Audio and The X-Presidents, among others. In the mid-90s he returned to SNL with a brilliant set of cartoons produced in association with J.J. He became head writer at Late Night when Conan O’Brien took over and reinvented late night comedy with characters like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and recurring bits like the Clutch Cargo-aping Syncro-Vox segments which superimposed his lips on the faces of everyone from George W. As one of the best writers in the history of Saturday Night Live he penned classics like a McLaughlin Group parody starring a demented Dana Carvey and Bill Swerski’s Superfans. ![]() You probably know Robert Smigel’s work without knowing his name. ![]()
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