Saturday, October 13, 2007
Jimmy We Hardly Knew Ye
Jimmy Kimmel hasn't been funny in weeks. I used to be a big fan of that show; his ratings have certainly grown, as guests keep noting in their appearances, but the show is in a temporary, or possibly more permanent trajectory of a long slow decline. Kimmel's monologues are not funny, the clips are seldom funny, his extended family is becoming a bad joke; Kimmel has mined the same formulas to exhaustion. Inexplicably, the shows are often repeats, even mid-week — you never know when a new show is airing. Kimmel is on autopilot.
Kimmel had his girlfriend Sarah Silverman on the other day. Trying to mine the Andy Kaufman / Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) realm of reality outrageousness Silverman's humor mostly resolves to distracted discomfort; more annoying than funny. True to the odd pop culture phenomenon of peaking popularity and unnoticed decline — Silverman's star is on the rise.