At 3am, when all its conservative viewers have gone to bed, American centre-right news channel Fox News gives the air over to a show produced by cynical mentally-deranged drunken teenagers. Or, so it appears.
Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld revels in its shameless focus on the irrelevant. It asks the questions no-one else dares to (or cares to). Questions such as "Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan - who'll die first?" and "Are David Beckham and Justin Timberlake the new targets of terrorists?"
NewsHounds (a site where humorless unemployed Democrats feed their persecution complex) describes the show as ..
"An offensive, stomach-turning pastiche of sewer humor.... the cesspool of ... smut and snark."
and
"the worst show ever!"
You have been warned! Only morally degenerate UK residents will be setting their Sky+ boxes to record the Fox News Channel, Sky channel 510, at 8am on seemingly random days of the week.
You will also wish to avoid visiting the archive of monologues in which Gutfeld parodies the commentary provided by other Fox News anchors at the start of their shows. He explains why George Bush should convert to Islam to get an uncritical press from the BBC, and how McDonald's value menu is the key to solving world hunger.
I love the show. Watching it is at first a bit of a culture shock. First you think
"WTF"
then
"I can't believe he just said that"
then
"I can't believe this is on a major news channel"
then
"I can't believe this show is still on the air"
and
"I can't believe there hasn't been a letter-writing campaign from outraged Christian Republicans demanding that this be cancelled."
Fox News commissioned the show, and got the show they wanted. But then Red Eye changed. It became darker, odder, dirtier and riskier. The black sheep in the Fox News Channel family, hidden away at 3am.
In many ways, Fox News have accidentally created a post-modern news show.
The latest Hollywood stumblings aren't reported with fake concern, but with derision and open admissions of schadenfreude.
When reporting Scientific surveys, the host openly admits he doesn't give a damn about their scientific validity, merely their entertainment value. He changes the topic when he gets bored.
In place of a bland vanilla-esque host, there's Gutfeld, a flawed human. When was the last time you saw a TV news presenter admit to getting drunk? Or smoking pot? Or failing to pick up women? Gutfeld admits that he's short, ugly and that having "completely stopped exercising" he's developed "tits. Fucking tits".
He admits that he's surprised that the show hasn't been axed, and that every morning when he comes into work, he half expects to find his Fox News pass deactivated. When the show was moved from 2am to 3am he quipped "I have every reason to cry, people."
Update 2008-04-07: Alas, some humorless pathetic losers have succeeded in pressuring Fox News to drop Red Eye in favor of something bland (at least when it comes to international syndication). For UK residents, The War on Strippers has been replaced by the War on Terror. And without Red Eye, there will be no more broadcasting of videos of dancing midgets impersonating Hillary Clinton. Thank God I had the foresight to set up a Hillary Clinton impersonator dancing midget video stash while I still had the chance!
Update 2008-04-10: It's back, following internal lobbying!
