Tuesday TV Touchbase: It's Funny Because It's True

There's a saying in comedy: it's funny because it's true.

And in our current political climate, it has fallen to comedians to keep us apprised of the truth of what's going on in our world.

Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase will look at some of those programs that I watch for laughs and, sadly, the truth.

Have I Got News For You on CNN is a panel show hosted by Roy Wood Jr and features Amber Ruffin, Michael Ian Black and 2 other guests.  The discussion of the week's events are centered around trivia contests and other games.

• "What's the Story?": Wood shows the teams clip packages referencing a major news story from the last week and they have to tell him what they refer to.
• "Offend-O-Meter": Teams receive pictures from an index and have to guess who they are, what they did, and whom they offended.
• "Missing Words": Wood gives the teams headlines with keywords excised and they have to fill in the blanks.
• "Odd One Out": Teams have to guess which picture out of four does not belong.
• "Lie-Curious": Teams are given three biographical statements and are asked which is true.
• "Meet in the Middle": Panellists decide which people share a common characteristic.
• "Caption Contest": Wood gives the teams pictures and asks them to caption them.

Think NPR's Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me but it's on TV.

Here is a compilation clip from Have I Got News For You.

Based on the long running British show of the same name, Have I Got News For You is laugh out loud funny and depressingly accurate about the shit we have to put up with.

"Laugh out loud funny and depressingly accurate about the shit we have to put up with" can also be applied to Late Night With Seth Meyers  and Seth's "A Closer Look" segment.  

Donald Trump calls for Seth to be fired citing his lack of talent and poor ratings.

Seth gleefully relays Donnie's threats and gets comedy gold out of it. 

I am a little worried about Seth.  Much like the Paramount/CBS debacle from earlier this year that led to Colbert's cancellation notice, NBC Universal is in the middle of a deal that needs FCC approval and the chairman of the NBC is not at all shy about exerting the authority of his agency to make der Führer happy.

I also follow The Daily Show for my combo of comedy + tragedy.  While the big draw is Jon Stewart who anchors the show on Monday nights, I'm a big fan of when Desi Lydic and Josh Johnson take on hosting duties behind the big desk.  

What is it about hot chicks wearing neckties? Or is it just me?

I like Josh Johnson a lot, about what, 1,000%?

I don't follow Last Week Tonight With John Oliver regularly. John takes a half hour to skewer the same news Seth does in 10 minutes and my ADHD brain thinks that's too long. 

But when I do bring myself to invest the time to watch one of these episodes, John inevitably gets me laughing but I am also impressed by the level of research that goes into making sure his segments are accurate. It's like watching a 60 Minutes segment except to add in jokes.  

Jimmy Kimmel Live! is still going on despite efforts of Donald Trump and his supplicant FCC chairman to kill it.  

Donald Trump calls for Jimmy to be fired citing his lack of talent and poor ratings.

Jimmy gleefully relays Donnie's threats and gets comedy gold out of it. 

Yeah,  there was that close call when Jimmy was pulled off the air for a few days and damn, it looked like Li'l Donnie had wished really hard and it came true.

Then people started cancelling their Disney+ subscriptions and shit, this is costing Disney real money.

Jimmy was back!

YAY! For freedom of speech! And capitalism.  

Jimmy and his writers come up with some of the best nicknames for Donald Trump.  Here are a few of them.  

• Napoleon Bone-Aspur
• R. Smelly
• Fiberace
• Commander-In-Thief
• Nostra-Dumbass
• El Pork-Choppo
• Count Flatula
• Founding Farter
• Teddy Dozevelt
• Dopey McGropey
• Lepre-Con Man
• Al Ca-Porn
• Julius Squeezer

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert is still on it's death march to a May 2026 date with cancellation despite being the highest rated show on late night network TV and winning an Emmy for best late night show this year.

The official word from CBS is the show costs too much and the ratings are not that great.

It's just a coincidence that the CBS owner Paramount is owned by David Ellison who is a right wing billionaire buddy of Donald Trump who  (you guessed it)....

Donald Trump calls for Stephen to be fired citing his lack of talent and poor ratings.

Stephen gleefully relays Donnie's threats and gets comedy gold out of it. Even if it puts him on the unemployment line.

Colbert might be a dead man walking as it were to his May 2026 cancellation fate but it has not stopped him from mining Trump's lack of competence, ethics and intelligence for wickedly incisive jokes in his monologue.  

Stephen Colbert has been nothing but gracious and professional throughout this ordeal, making him a far better man than the thin skinned orange ogre who can't fucking take a joke.

Let's move on to Saturday Night Live  which in our advancing ages, Andrea and I still watch when it's new. We persevere through sketches about pop culture phenomena we don't understand and musical guests we've never heard of until we get to Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che.

Jost and Che are funny and ascerbic in their jokes about whatever bullshit Trump and his acolytes been up to but it's hard when Seth Meyers and the Daily Show gang has already done a lot of damage to der Führer during the week already.

Thankfully Colin and Michael can turn on a dime because Trump is churning out bullshit on Truth Social 24/7 and he doesn't take weekends off.  

One night we didn't have to wait until after midnight to get to Colin. Here's the cold open when Colin plays Pete Hegseth.

"OUR MILITARY IS GAY AS HELL!!"  

I call Colin Jost Andrea's boyfriend which Andrea does not care for but it's OK if I can get Scarlett Johansen in the bargain. 

Getting under der Führer's fat wrinkly thin orange skin is 

James Austin Johnson who does Donald Trump on the show. 

FUN FACT:  Johnson began his acting career starring in independent Christian films. (He's moved on from that.) 

Johnson's take on Trump is less a caricature and more of a fully evolved character who revels in his insane excesses and slips into occassional lapses of realizing how fucked up he's made everything then lapses back into not caring about that. 

Johnson is good at other stuff besides Trump.  Check out this sketch where Johnson plays an airline pilot with questionable life choices that he shares with the passengers.

If you can ignore Nikki Glaser botching her lines, I thought that was a very funny sketch due to James Austin Johnson's deadpan delivery.  

OK, that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.