So Colin Quinn has a new show, Tough Crowd, where he and four other comedians sit around and try to discuss four “issues”. The idea is that ‘normal’ TV shows wouldn’t be as up-front about the issues as comedians, and maybe they’ll say what everyone is thinking but are too politically correct to say. Or something like that.
Tonight on the show the first issue they were discussing was whether or not the retarded should be executed. Now, they discussed this for about ten minutes, but for the eight minutes at least, I didn’t realize that what they meant to be discussing was whether the retarded who have committed crimes that would normally result in capital punishment should be executed. It didn’t occur to me that whether special considerations should be made about how to punish people who break the law based on their capacity to learn, or even that people were considering doing such a thing. I thought they were discussing negative eugenics. I think a couple of the comedians weren’t clear on that either. I think we thought we were discussing executing the retarded because they were retarded, not whether the retarded should be allowed to live for the same reason despite committing crimes that would end the lives of others.
Also, Jerry Seinfeld apparently did not understand what the show was supposed to be like. Instead of saying anything real, he just repeated near-topic jokes from his existing repertoire.
