Dennis Miller CANCELLED (again)

TELEVISION Specific Shows
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http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/nationa...nis050512.html

*NEW YORK - The cable business network CNBC is cancelling Dennis Miller’s nightly talk show, barely 16 months after it launched.

In a memo to staff, CNBC head Mark Hoffman said that when Miller was informed that his show was being axed, he “let me know that his strong preference is to leave the program immediately.”

The last instalment of Dennis Miller will air Friday.

At the time of his debut, the channel announced that Miller would bring his “take-no-prisoners, suffer-no-fools style” to prime time.

The audience, however, did not warm to that style. According to Nielsen Media Research, the show had an average of 168,000 viewers. That number dropped to 114,000 after last year’s presidential election.

Although those who know him say he has always had a conservative streak, many viewers were surprised by Miller’s outspoken right-wing political stance.

When the show premiered, for instance, Miller told the Associated Press that he would not be making jokes about U.S. President George W. Bush.

“I like him. I’m going to give him a pass. I take care of my friends,” he said.

Some guests on the show who did not share Miller’s views were uncomfortable on air, making for interviews that were painful to watch.

Miller has had a checkered history on television. He first came to the attention of the public as the host of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update faux newscast.

He carved out a niche with his brand of intelligent and sarcastic comedy, popularizing the phrase “I am outta here.”

After leaving Saturday Night Live in 1991, he hosted the short-lived Dennis Miller Show the following year. This was in an era when seemingly everyone was getting a nightly talk show.

A successful run as host of Dennis Miller Live on HBO followed, earning him five Emmy Awards. He was also a commentator on Monday Night Football.

CNBC has had a time carving out a niche in prime time. It cancelled McEnroe, a nightly chatfest hosted by former tennis star John McEnroe, last year.

McEnroe twice registed a 0.0 rating, meaning that, statistically speaking, it had no viewers.

Miller has been rumoured to be a possible candidate to run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican from California.*

Hopefully, this time it’s for good! I was always reminded of that Simpsons episode where Homer starts his own religion. This show was Dennis Miller’s “Johnny Calhoun’s These Things I Believe” career-ending manuever.

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bad show, bad politics, bad comedy

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9-11 destroyed Dennis Miller. He was funny as hell when he took the ‘fuck anyone and everyone’ approach to his comedy & his HBO shows are still great. It’s sad to see a guy who used to be so good take such a nose dive so quickly.

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Miller’s never been funny.

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His first Daily Show appearance after 9/11 pretty much killed him for me. He went off on some racist rant about how anyone with dark skin shouldn’t be allowed on an airplane. I couldn’t agree with Devin more that a comedian bowing to authority simply cannot be funny. Comedy, almost by definition, has to stick it to the man. Sticking it to the underdog isn’t funny.

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I think we’re jumping the gun on this “9/11 wrecked Miller’s sense of humor” angle. Things really started to go south when he became the color commentator for Monday Night Football. I truly believe that’s what killed his edge. Actually, scratch that, I know it did. How am I going to defend this?

Consider that, before MNF, Miller was known mostly for his highbrow and politically moderate brand of humor. Now, consider that most of the scathing early reviews of his MNF performances basically chastised him for using polysyllabic words and phrases and slightly obscure literary references. Miller’s essentially told that mainstream acceptance will only be found when he dumbs down the material. The wife beating, mildly retarded, Bush supporting mutants of Red America killed Miller’s edge, not 9/11.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Werbal_Kint Miller’s never been funny.

Yes he has.

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That article seems really caustic.

And is that true about McEnroe- ZERO VIEWERS??

Also, really nasty how the acknowledgement of Miller’s new show is followed by, “This was in an era when seemingly everyone was getting a nightly talk show.”

How catty.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nigel St. Buggering I couldn’t agree with Devin more that a comedian bowing to authority simply cannot be funny. Comedy, almost by definition, has to stick it to the man. Sticking it to the underdog isn’t funny.

Absolutely. I never considered Dennis a comedy great but before he changed, he was decent. I watched a couple of his programs this year and even the audience appeared to be straining for somehing to laugh at.

Time to put it all to rest especially when a retired tennis player had a funnier show. (his got cancelled also but Miller’s show should have gotten the boot a long time ago)

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I caught a couple of episodes of his CNBC show and it was awful. I was never a huge fan of Miller, but I thought he was fine in the 80s and 90s. While MNF was a disaster, I completely agree with Guttenberg (and others) that there was a pre 9/11 Miller and a post 9/11 Miller. Since then, he has not been funny at all.

Since 9/11, I’ve had the feeling that he was willing to support the U.S. bombing any Middle Eastern country if it meant foreign blood could be spilled in the name of “U.S. Justice”. He wanted someone to pay and wasn’t concerned with the details of who it should be.

Good riddance.

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As far as the 0 rating, I read that on a couple of occasions, McEnroe’s show had so few
viewers, like below 100,000, that it was unable to register a rating. It doesn’t mean
that literally no one was watching the show. And I agree with whoever said that
McEnroe’s show was far superior to Miller’s.

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Miller just fell into some weird gap. His unquestioning support for even the dumbest Bush blunders estranged him from the intellectual (or at least the pseudointellectual) crowd, but his occasional use of arcane references and book learned gibberish left the typical red staters confused, irritated and somewhat overweight. OK, they were already overweight. Miller just doesn’t belong anywhere anymore. He’s an agnostic intelligent Bush supporter! There’s maybe like five of him in the country!

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Even though Norm Macdonald was the king of Weekend Update, Miller was the first SNL anchor I watched and I was always amused by a lot of what he did. I never had a problem with him on MNF, in fact I think I read that the ratings have not been any better, and might be a tad worse, since Madden went into the booth. He’s always been a funny guy but because he doesn’t toe the liberal line he gets slammed.

His current show was not very good at all. It was too much of an odd mix. He’d talk foreign policy with a panel one segment and then interview someone from the cast of “Scrubs” the next. It didn’t jive at all. That being said it was way better than that POS that McEnroe hosted. That was worse than Magic Johnsosn’s talk show, which at least had one classic episode.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moltisanti He’s always been a funny guy but because he doesn’t toe the liberal line he gets slammed.

Yeah, 'cause all we liberals do is check out a comedian’s political leanings before we decide to laugh or not.

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It’s not the only thing liberals do, but just like conservatives, if a comic doesn’t fit in with their beliefs they have a harder time finding them funny. Look at this thread. It’s full of folks who think Miller went nuts for having the nerve to suggest that terrorists deserve death. He’s not as funny as he used to be but I think it has more to do with him getting a bit older. It happens to many guys who were once funny. There was a time when Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy were funny.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by NewFlesh I wonder if you guys who think Miller stinks feel the same way about Al Franken? He’s another guy, along with Janeane Garofalo, who have completely lost their sense of humor because of their extremist views.

Garofalo would be the left leaning version of Miller in my eyes. She is a dour interview subject, but has gotten worse over the years. I haven’t heard her radio show. Franken seems the same as he has always been.

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What sucks the funny out of Franken is that it seems like he is trying to convert folks through what he considers his humor. As much as Miller swerved to the right I never felt like he was trying to get his audience to look at things the same way he did. To be honest, it looked like he could care less what people thought of his political views.

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If you guys read books I would point out Franken’s insanely funny recent books.

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Books ain’t no good. These days you can go places where people write 3 or 4 sentences and they consider themselves an expert. Whether it’s unrest in Iraq or the possibility of a new WAR GAMES film I like my information dumbed down to dephths which have yet to be discovered.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moltisanti It’s not the only thing liberals do, but just like conservatives, if a comic doesn’t fit in with their beliefs they have a harder time finding them funny. Look at this thread. It’s full of folks who think Miller went nuts for having the nerve to suggest that terrorists deserve death. He’s not as funny as he used to be but I think it has more to do with him getting a bit older. It happens to many guys who were once funny. There was a time when Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy were funny.

He did a lot more than suggest that terrorists deserve death. He suggested that middle-easterners who had nothing to do with terrorism deserve death, that racial profiling is a perfectly reasonable idea, and that invading Iraq for something perpetrated by Saudis is justifiable.

And it’s really got nothing to do with whether I agree with him. I didn’t agree with half of what Sam Kinison said in his entire career, but I thought he was hilarious. The problem with Miller is that he allowed his righteous rage to infect his material, and that just isn’t amusing. And to answer an earlier question, I think the same of Al Franken. Contrast the extremely funny “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” with the tepid “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them”. “Lies”, while filled with great observations, is more about Franken’s anger with the right’s blatant manipulation of language than anything resembling real humor.

Frankly, I just think it’s a shame that we’re losing great comedians to both sides of the political debate.