The first thing you notice about Gutfeld!, Greg Gutfeld's ratings-gobbling, Colbertbattling, have-some-of-that Don-Lemon phenomenon of a late-night political-satirical talk show on Fox News, is the silences. The pockets of dead air. Gutfeld cracks a joke, one of his reliably and knowingly terrible jokes, and you hear not well-fed mirth but crickets, tumbleweeds, a nightclub vacuum: maybe a few reluctant yuks from his guests, maybe a whoop or a groan from some a » hollow depth beyond the set. It's as if he's bombing on his own show.
You notice this, of course, because like me you're a simpering liberal reared on toothless consensus comedy. We're used to The Daily Show With Trevor Noah and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, where a oneliner about Ted Cruz's facial hair will be bathed in eager applause. Clapping as ideology, tier upon tier of it, an orgy of herd affirmation.
Not for Gutfeld. His gags die of exposure, they perish proudly in a frisson of awfulness, while Gutfeld, very charming, gleams and grins and does heavy work with his eyebrows.
Because it is currently one of the most popular late-night shows on television—it regularly beats Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in the ratings and has even, on occasion, supplanted The Late Show with Stephen Colbert—I watched Gutfeld! for a week, growing more and more fascinated as the days went by. Here's Gutfeld on Monday. “Hope you had a great weekend," he says. “I know I did.” A jovial leer into the camera. “Although the last thing I remember was Larry Kudlow putting on the leather mask ...” Cue a split screen with Kudlow, Donald Trump's former economic adviser and one of Monday's guests, cackling and rocking creakily in his chair. What?! What is happening?
This story is from the June 2022 edition of The Atlantic.
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This story is from the June 2022 edition of The Atlantic.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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