PALEY CENTER FOR MEDIA, THE: NEW YORK COMEDY FESTIVAL: BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE ONION NEWS NETWORK ON IFC {LONG VERSION ANAMORPHIC}
Summary
One in a series of evenings and special screenings presented as part of The Paley Center for Media's Inside Media events. Held at the Paley Center in New York as part of the 2011 New York Comedy Festival, this evening features a discussion with the writers and creators of the "Onion News Network," a satirical news program airing on IFC. Host David Bushman (television curator, The Paley Center for Media) offers opening remarks about the Paley Center's association with the comedy festival and its past events, and then introduces moderator Brian Stelter (TV and digital media reporter, the New York Times). Stelter brings the panelists to the stage: producer Liz Koe; and writers John Harris, Carol Kolb, Dan Mirk, and Lang Fisher.
The conversation touches on such topics as: their individual jobs and how they began in comedy writing, including Mirk's non-traditional internship; the "fake history" of their "ratings-hungry, morally corrupt" news outlet that is "Foxier than Fox"; their use of actual former newscasters as actors, owing to the difficult nature of television reporting; the process of figuring out the show's tone and how to translate their printed material into a TV program; the original plans to impersonate famous figures and eventual decision to parody an aggressive 24-hour news program; their first web videos in 2007 and their many assorted tasks in creating them; the Onion's very serious delivery as the basis of its humor; the "insane" and talented graphics department, who are occasionally "poached" by legitimate news organizations; their oddly common use of jokes related to horses; their favorite web videos, including suggestions for children's Halloween costumes and one memorable young actor's role; the bizarre challenges of procuring animals and other "props" for their stories; their interest in maintaining variety on the show and avoiding being a "clip show"; the development over time of their eccentric newscaster characters; their plans to create absurd fake reality shows, scrapped due to expense; their disinterest in actually working in the real, "soul-crushing" news; the writers' occasional lack of perspective about the outlandishness of their jobs; their decision not to "trash the little guy" and to instead address "what's wrong with the world" in broad strokes; the writing process in which staff members submit many headlines, which are whittled down to the best choices; the differences between the production of the printed newspaper and of the TV show; the importance of timeliness on the show, like with the recent Occupy Wall Street stories; their collaborative writing style and multi-chapter stories; an ongoing joke about an asteroid headed for Earth; the occasional "unintelligence" of the audience, who frequently take the jokes literally; a humorous story involving the Make-A-Wish Foundation in which the actual program had to intervene because of misunderstandings; their use of real-life newscaster guest-stars like Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow; their parody of Anderson Cooper; the "entertaining" nature of bombastic, unlikable news figures; how it is "hard to be worse" than some of the more outrageous reporters; the different "timelines" of the print and televised mediums; and their efforts to report on events more quickly, including sports headlines.
Questions from the audience then lead to a discussion of the following topics: their deliberate use of foul language; a "complicated and expensive" special report from a post-apocalyptic future; inspiration from the film "Network" and the "antiquated" nature of regular televised news; a joke about teen pop star Justin Bieber that went over badly with some younger fans; their comedy influences, including Andy Kaufman and "Saturday Night Live"; advice to aspiring comedy writers to create their own material; their tough treatment of one another's work and improvement through criticism; the ideal joke "in the middle" between comedy and smart, realistic observations; their lack of strong political leanings; their own Make-A-Wish dreams; bits that went "too far," including a pig-butchering story and off-color jokes about sex abuse from Catholic priests; their working hours and long days; whether their actors improvise or stick to their scripts; the Onion's distinct "comic brand" and the usefulness of its "restrictive format"; and their lack of use of formal bylines and awareness of one another's distinct comic voices.
Clips from the show are interspersed throughout the program, including: an exceptionally pretentious cooking show with Ted Allen of "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy"; a scene from "In the Know" featuring clueless debate commentators; a story about President Obama's widely-praised forceful handling of a Wall Street banker; and a scene from "Is Today Now?" featuring a young boy and his doctor describing a shark attack with surprising gusto.
Details
- NETWORK: N/A
- DATE: November 11, 2011 7:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:25:55
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 106386
- GENRE: Seminars
- SUBJECT HEADING: N/A
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- David Bushman … Host
- Brian Stelter … Moderator
- Liz Koe … Panelist
- John Harris … Panelist
- Carol Kolb … Panelist
- Dan Mirk … Panelist
- Lang Fisher … Panelist
- Ted Allen
- Glenn Beck
- Justin Bieber
- Andy Kaufman
- Rachel Maddow
- Barack Obama