Oh, Colin Qvinn.

His show on Comedy Central is called Tugh Crowd. Presumably, and I'm not being smart, because that's what stand up comedians sometimes say when they have a hostile audience/are bombing on stage. I just think it's interesting that one of the less competent performers on television has specifically that as the name for his show.

Colin Qvinn is exceptional primarily because he is the only host of SNL's Weekend Update who was worse than Norm McDunald. Colin Qvinn can't read. I don't mean that he's illiterate, just that he has no timing whatsoever. The only time I ever liked him as a performer was when he played Artie's idiot son on The Larry Sanders Show.

But now he has his own show on Comedy Central. Why?
I'm writing about this, honestly, because I'm offended by his show. I watch the Daily Show whenever I can, and I've caught Tugh Crowd a couple of times. To start of with, the show is infrequently funny. Qvinn's delivery is a cringe-inducing to me as the president's. Fortunately, the president doesn't speak that often, and when he does he's very coached, or at least seems it. And another thing: these guys think bigotry is cute.

Obviously not all of them. But Colin, his good buddy Nick DePolo, and Jim Nerton, two of the most frequent guests, think being an asshole is funny. Colin thinks he's a badass, Nick DePolo is the most embarrassing caricature of an Italian-American I can think of, and Jim Norton just gives me the skeevies. Jim Nerton is Se7en gross. He even looks like a rapist. Nick DePolo is jingoistic, uninformed, unfunny, and seems to think that throwing around Andrew Dice Clay-worthy slurs and epithets make him a comedian. Why is it taboo to make racist statements? Because it's ugly. Because it provokes tensions and divides us. Because it hurts people. Because it's stupid. Because... anyone who knows their history knows why.
Which isn't to say that we should avoid racial issues in humor. Or self-censor. But being an asshole isn't funny.
My problem with these guys is an issue I think is related to All in the Family. Half of the people who watched that show didn't know that it was satirical. They thought that Archie Bunker was a legitimate representative for white blue collar Americans. They thought he was cool.

The problem with this is that transgression is just transgression. Transgression done only for attention and shock value is trash. When Nick DePolo makes sport of Adrian Brody's nose because, hey, Jewish people have big noses, he's just being a jerk. He's not trying to break us out of apathy or provoking thought, he's making fun of Jews. How edgy.

Tugh Crowd has many problems in general. It's just not really a great idea to have stand-up comedians debate important issues of the day. I mean, is there anything more ironic than Jim Norton deriding Hollywood anti-war people as phony, ill-informed "jizz-bags" a full ten minutes after he's weighed in on the issue of torture? Bill Mayer's shows have had similar problems, but both Real-Time and Politically Incorrect have had the benefit of having a competent, provocative, and articulate host. And the focus of those shows is more the debate than the humor, which helps.

The bottom line is that Tugh Crowd sucks. It follows one of the best shows on television, and it compares unfavorably to Mad TV. I can't wait till it's cancelled.