They Reportedly Tell Jokes, You Decide Whether to Laugh

Meet the Fox News Channel's Daily Show knockoff, The 1/2 Hour News Hour. (The yuks start right here, folks!) It debuts Sunday night, and we've been watching some of the pilot segments strewn about YouTube, and it's safe to say that the show is not an iota more or less than what you'd expect. The format, in a slight but significant tweak of the original, spoofs not cable news but rather a local male-female anchor team, all stilted transitions and forced chatter. The pilot's opening segment is some Leno-grade stuff on Obamamania, including a fake ad for an Oprah-like BO Magazine (because both Oprah and Obama are, you know, public figures).

The show's creator, Joel Surnow, who shares very little beyond his initials with Jon Stewart, gets top billing here — it's Joel Surnow's 1/2 Hour News Hour to you — despite not actually appearing on air. Surnow is better known for 24, a program presenting the nation with weekly dilemmas on the order of If the terrorists were about to blow us up and little Suzie knew about it, would you shoot out her kneecap to make her talk? These are hardly comedy-gold credentials, which Ailes and Co. seem to realize: The 1/2 Hour News Hour hasn't been formally picked up yet. In an interview with TV Guide, Surnow says his conservatism doesn't make him a pariah in Hollywood "because I have a hit show." He may not know much about comedy, but that's a helluva setup for a pratfall.

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Edited by Chris Rovzar and Jessica Pressler

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