Greg Gutfeld of Fox News’ The Five is officially in the late-night comedy business now. Well, that’s sort-of the case. His new show, Greg Gutfeld’s Gutfeld! aims to be an alternative to all the late-night comedy shows (and cable news talk shows) out there, and so far, it’s drawing a decent amount of viewers (1.69 million, which beats the cable news competition). One would expect that the existing crowd showed up because Gutfeld is promising to “cancel cancel culture,” although one can’t expect the attraction to last too long. Not when people get over the novelty of exactly how not-laugh-filled this show’s jokes turned out to be.
Take the opening monologue, for example, which suggests that Joe Biden thinks his TV is a microwave and that Brian Williams broadcasts from Mars.
WATCH: Greg’s first monologue from the ALL NEW #Gutfeld pic.twitter.com/1p0ShlqkvU
— Gutfeld! (@Gutfeldfox) April 6, 2021
It’s… not great. Even “hard-edged satirists” are supposed to be funny. Well, this is not drawing genuine laughs, and comedians are taking notice. Both Michael Ian Black and Tim Heidecker noted that the logo looks too far too close to the Garfield counterpart. Is that funny?
The funniest part of this show is that the “Gutfeld” logo looks like the “Garfield” logo. https://t.co/4VdFa3Typb
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) April 6, 2021
so the graphic designer at Fox is not a fan of @greggutfeld and designed his show’s title to look like Garfield! Pretty pathetic! pic.twitter.com/KnEJ3Aviqs
— Join HEI Now (@timheidecker) April 6, 2021
The Daily Beast spoke with some comedians who’ve offered their own criticism. Jena Friedman (formerly of The Daily Show and now of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) declared, “It’s like watching a guy going through a divorce doing an impression of Bill Maher… He reminds me of the boss whose jokes you’re forced to laugh at.” Sasha Stewart (formerly of Nightly Show) stated, “Just because something has the cadence of a joke does not make it a joke.” She added, “I’m sorry for the five staffers who make up the laugh track.”
Justin Cousson (who noted the laugh track) and Conan writer Laurie Kilmartin also weighed in.
Back in the day, I had two bookings for Red Eye. During the first appearance, I did an Ann Coulter joke and because of that, they cancelled the second appearance. But good luck to this little pussy! pic.twitter.com/OygIohH62r
— Moderna Kilmartin (@anylaurie16) March 31, 2021
you gotta hand it to greg gutfeld, the four people in his laugh track are all courteous enough to not interrupt each other https://t.co/E0gjQNutrx
— justin L! cousson (@justincousson) April 6, 2021
People can’t stop marveling at how cringeworthy all of these jokes are turning out to be.
sweet googly moogly pic.twitter.com/qxpEDghbi7
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) April 6, 2021
Helium Eric is back pic.twitter.com/Fg9mN3ezNT
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 7, 2021
it’s unbelievable how unfunny this is. i can’t turn away pic.twitter.com/L2f7dmJkGL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 7, 2021
I’ll be honest. I didn’t find Greg Gutfeld funny when I was a conservative.
— David Weissman (@davidmweissman) April 6, 2021
Greg Gutfeld is one of the funniest people on Fox News and that is a network that has boasted comedy legends like Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Ainsley Earhardt.
— Mr. Newberger (@jeremynewberger) April 6, 2021
Congratulations to the confused raccoon who wandered into one of the UCB Sketch Writing 101 classes I taught ten years ago for staffing on the Greg Gutfeld Show
— Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) April 6, 2021
Meanwhile, let’s turn to Sean Hannity.. here’s a real laugh.
Holy shit, you guys. Biden’s presidency won’t survive this. pic.twitter.com/wLIqXWCHWa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 7, 2021