Sound Politics: Fake Spokane Newsdorks Star On Comedy Central

May 31, 2006

Fake Spokane Newsdorks Star On Comedy Central

Comedy Central's coming news mockumentary series "Dog Bites Man" stars a hapless bunch of supposed Spokane newspersons. Is it a fitting tribute to Inland Northwest media? Spokane blogger Frank Sennett of Hard 7 writes:

Spokane's about to be embarrassed by one of its TV news crews. But at least this time, the reporters and station will be fake.

The show premieres June 7. The Long Island Press has more:

Upright Citizen Brigade member and former contributor to The Daily Show Matt Walsh, and the extremely funny and under-exposed comic Zach Galifianakis, as well as two other actors...take the streets as the KHBX News Team, the most ridiculous news team to ever come out of Spokane.....the network describe(s) Dog Bites Man as "an outrageous, improvised, single-camera show that features a group of dysfunctional fake newscasters interacting with real people and is presented in a documentary-style format.".....(the show) was originally slated to be a midseason replacement on NBC called American Lives, but was eventually dropped by the network, only to be picked up by Comedy Central. In true hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners, guerilla-journalistic fashion, the team covers such weighty stories as "Do sneeze guards really work?" and "What's in your muffin?" and (gets) themselves in all kinds of trouble.

Real-life kinds of trouble. Like this.

Now - 2.5 questions. Feel free to answer one or both.

1) How far off from the real thing is an absurdist parody of TV news, and what are the actual bright spots of TV news in Washington state?

2) Do you have any Northwest storyline suggestions for the putatively Spokane-based Comedy Central news mockumentarists? (Make 'em good, OK?)

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 31, 2006 04:26 PM | Email This

Comments

1. Pick a college campus...any campus, and do a search for a conservative professor...or perhaps search for the underground student conservatives.

Posted by: Diogenes on May 31, 2006 04:44 PM

2. How about if they were to interview the "dead" voters from the 2004 election to find out if they voted for Dino Rossi(the true governor) or Ms. Gregoire.

Posted by: TrueSoldier on May 31, 2006 04:45 PM

3. Typical lame garbage coming out of the Entertainment Industry. Who cares!

Posted by: Jeff B. on May 31, 2006 04:57 PM

4. "Beekin's fake Bio, which pegs him as a native of 'the small resort town of Medical Lake'".

Medical Lake a resort town?? It has always been famous for Eastern State Hospital.(mental cases) I guess it all fits!

Posted by: Susu on May 31, 2006 05:51 PM

5. How about a TV "reality" series about a house full of Washington Democrats? It could include McDermott, Murray and Cantwell. It could be called the Best and the Brightest? Tom Folley could be house mother and each week he would assign the Democrats at task revolving around creating utopias.

Posted by: Gary B on May 31, 2006 08:09 PM

6. Parodies of local news anywhere are not that far off the mark, seeing as most hew to the "if it bleeds it leads" format. Failing murder anything that might HURT your children would be the alternate lead.

In terms of WA state TV news, I'm only familiar with the western part of the state, so I'll say Robert Mak's public affairs piece on KING-5 is probably the best in that he actually will have GOPers on.

Ooh, here comes the fun part, parody news:

NICKELS BEMOANS SNACK FOOD BAN AT VISIT TO PUBLIC SCHOOL

MAKAH WHALE KILLS POLLUTE FUCA STRAIT, EPA RULES

HOMELESS TEENS KEY TO NEW JOBS CAPITOL HILL GROUP SAYS

GLOBAL WARMING CAUSED BY HANFORD WASTE!!

GODDEN: LACK OF CLEVER LICENSE PLATES STATE'S FAULT

SOUTH LAKE UNION TO TAKE DRUNKS OFF STREET
They'll ride around instead says Allen

Actually you can't make this up... It's all too real

Posted by: Dave J on May 31, 2006 09:03 PM

7. A young Black Bear was spotted today on Weyerhaeuser forestland slated to be clearcut and developed next month. Wildlife officials were called in to chase the unwanted animal up a 150' tree where it was shot with a tranquilizer gun. The bear, unharmed from its now routine fall to the earth, will be relocated to downtown Seattle where other illegal immigrants and misfits are welcome and supported with tax dollars.

Posted by: MJC on May 31, 2006 09:47 PM

8. Hummm... 54 comments on a whole day's posts. This site has slipped into the shoals of complete boredom.

I can certainly see why, you're still trying to convince yourselves that Dino really did win the election.

Posted by: Unkl Witz on May 31, 2006 10:50 PM

9. Witz, you are about as sharp as a sack of mashed potatoes. I bet your idea of sex is letting Queen Christine screw more money out of you. What a worm. If that's all you have, then you are a sad specimen indeed.

Posted by: ERNurse on June 1, 2006 12:15 AM

10. Speaking of Goofy...
Take a look at the article in today's P-U by one of their worst reporter's (Greggy Roberts) on our Drinking Liberally dirtball friends.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/272376_drinking01.html

If you really want a rush, go to the Seattle P-U homepage and look at the picture of some of these pedephiles! Look at the little kid these KLOWNS are drinking with?!!
And does anyone see a tip on the table??

Posted by: Mr. Cynical on June 1, 2006 01:36 AM

11. Why did they need to cast and shoot for this program? True lunacy already exists in the personage of Jean Enerson. Anyone who can stomach a half hour of her would undoubtably go ape over the comedy channel's spoof.

Posted by: Saltherring on June 1, 2006 05:59 AM

12. I lament the change in Shark's site that eliminated the hyperlink for email addresses. I created mine (rich.kiker.is.a.phony@hotmail.com) specifically in celebration of the loser unkle witless.

he/she/it serves as a constant reminder of what can happen to you when you stare into the sun too long...

Posted by: alphabet soup on June 1, 2006 07:51 AM