Maher pokes Bush
February 15, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN
The Chicago Sun-Times
Since Bill Maher talks openly about smoking pot, I ask him why he doesn't take his TV guests overseas for an episode or two, so they can legally toke up on camera.
Oddly, the comic refuses to take this suggestion seriously.
"I was just in Amsterdam," he says. "It would be a different show, just put it that way."
HBO's live-from-L.A. "Real Time With Bill Maher" begins new weekly episodes at 10 p.m. Friday. As usual, his studio audiences will applaud liberal jokes and statements. Maher has openly appealed for conservatives to sit with his crowds, but they won't.
"They're apparently in bed by 8 o'clock at night on Friday and getting ready for church or something," he says.
Maher doesn't think true conservatives would take the time to sit in his audience to support President Bush anyway, now that the unpopular president is waging a war of "incompetence" and running up the debt.
"It's very hard these days just to be a conservative on my show or, really, anywhere," Maher says.
Or maybe conservatives don't want to go to a studio to listen to Maher rationalize a Bush impeachment while issuing naughty proclamations. ("Truth is like sex," he says of his show. "It's best when it's a little painful.")
If Maher's favorite guests appear this season, that would mean more Ben Affleck, D.L. Hughley, Larry Miller, Robin Williams and Barney Frank.
Each of those men does his homework beforehand, then doesn't hold back. (His two most entertaining guests last year were Frank, a master debater, and the funny and acidic Harry Anderson from "Night Court.")
One thing's for sure. Maher is oiling up guests with alcohol. Some of them drink before they go on TV to calm anxiety.
"It helps some. Others it does not help at all. I think we've seen those instances," he says without elaborating.
Maher more earnestly offers booze to guests after an episode wraps for the night. This isn't a problem at HBO, but it started a "big fight" he lost at ABC, which he refers to as "Disney," ABC's parent company.
"I wanted drinks in the green room, and they did not want them at ABC," Maher says. "I think it's always good to get, you know, a moderate amount of liquor into a guest, because they're nervous as hell."
Is Maher, at 51, being "Politically Incorrect"? Hardly. That was Maher's ABC show until the network tossed him not long after he offered the distinction that terrorists acted stupidly, not cowardly, on 9/11.
He prefers guests on his show to behave not cowardly or stupidly, but angrily.
"There's a lot to be angry about. People who aren't angry, they're the ones I want to say, 'What's wrong with you?' "
He says the hothead conservative Sen. John McCain gets a bad rap for blowing his top; this demonstrates that, whether or not conservatives will attend his shows, the host will defend some of them with a typically Maher deliberation.
"They do level that charge at John McCain, but you know, John McCain spent five years in a box in Vietnam. Maybe he's a little cranky because of that."
BY DOUG ELFMAN
The Chicago Sun-Times
Since Bill Maher talks openly about smoking pot, I ask him why he doesn't take his TV guests overseas for an episode or two, so they can legally toke up on camera.
Oddly, the comic refuses to take this suggestion seriously.
"I was just in Amsterdam," he says. "It would be a different show, just put it that way."
HBO's live-from-L.A. "Real Time With Bill Maher" begins new weekly episodes at 10 p.m. Friday. As usual, his studio audiences will applaud liberal jokes and statements. Maher has openly appealed for conservatives to sit with his crowds, but they won't.
"They're apparently in bed by 8 o'clock at night on Friday and getting ready for church or something," he says.
Maher doesn't think true conservatives would take the time to sit in his audience to support President Bush anyway, now that the unpopular president is waging a war of "incompetence" and running up the debt.
"It's very hard these days just to be a conservative on my show or, really, anywhere," Maher says.
Or maybe conservatives don't want to go to a studio to listen to Maher rationalize a Bush impeachment while issuing naughty proclamations. ("Truth is like sex," he says of his show. "It's best when it's a little painful.")
If Maher's favorite guests appear this season, that would mean more Ben Affleck, D.L. Hughley, Larry Miller, Robin Williams and Barney Frank.
Each of those men does his homework beforehand, then doesn't hold back. (His two most entertaining guests last year were Frank, a master debater, and the funny and acidic Harry Anderson from "Night Court.")
One thing's for sure. Maher is oiling up guests with alcohol. Some of them drink before they go on TV to calm anxiety.
"It helps some. Others it does not help at all. I think we've seen those instances," he says without elaborating.
Maher more earnestly offers booze to guests after an episode wraps for the night. This isn't a problem at HBO, but it started a "big fight" he lost at ABC, which he refers to as "Disney," ABC's parent company.
"I wanted drinks in the green room, and they did not want them at ABC," Maher says. "I think it's always good to get, you know, a moderate amount of liquor into a guest, because they're nervous as hell."
Is Maher, at 51, being "Politically Incorrect"? Hardly. That was Maher's ABC show until the network tossed him not long after he offered the distinction that terrorists acted stupidly, not cowardly, on 9/11.
He prefers guests on his show to behave not cowardly or stupidly, but angrily.
"There's a lot to be angry about. People who aren't angry, they're the ones I want to say, 'What's wrong with you?' "
He says the hothead conservative Sen. John McCain gets a bad rap for blowing his top; this demonstrates that, whether or not conservatives will attend his shows, the host will defend some of them with a typically Maher deliberation.
"They do level that charge at John McCain, but you know, John McCain spent five years in a box in Vietnam. Maybe he's a little cranky because of that."
Comments