Number Two With a Bullet

So I'm watching a Red Sox-Yankees game this weekend, and midway through the telecast what looked like some frat-boy doofus decked out in Sox gear showed up in the Fox broadcast booth. It wasn't Ben Affleck, the most likely candidate, and since I had the sound off it took a good five minutes to realize that it was none other than Dane Cook, the lamest comedian in America - and (naturally) the new face of post-season baseball.

Football passed baseball as America's real national pastime sometime in the late '60s or early '70s, and for a while MLB arguably slipped to third in the pecking order, behind the NBA and with hockey nipping at its heels. Since a certain early-90s low point, baseball has arguably clawed its way back to number two, but as long as the NFL's in business it's always going to be a distant number two. Still, do they need to make it quite so obvious? Compare this:

To this:

Now, which sport do you want to be a fan of?

Or as Cliff Corcoran put it, watching the same travesty: "Dane Cook and MLB on FOX were made for each other, both are loud and completely unqualified to do what they're doing."

Comments

Dane Cook isn't the lamest comedian in America, but he's in the top five. Everyone I know who thinks the prick is funny is a Republican.

Dennis Miller is much lamer, but I don't know if he's considered to be a comedian anymore.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 17, 2007 11:22 PM

Carlos Mencia, Bill Engvall, Carrot top, and Larry the Cable Guy are lamer. Not by much though.

Posted by mad6798j | September 17, 2007 11:34 PM

I like baseball more than football, but there's no question football and football ads kill baseball ads. That Michael Mann directed Merriman/Jackson ad is one of the best minute videos I've ever seen.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pw7XwdWpe9M

Posted by Sam | September 17, 2007 11:47 PM

Ross, it's gotta be baseball. Dane Cook or no Dane Cook, the Tribe is going all the way! And how could anybody be a fan of the Red Sox after seeing "Fever Pitch"?

Posted by Casey | September 18, 2007 1:16 AM

In terms of TV viewership, you're right - that's the inevitable result of having games once a week instead of 5 times a week. But the thing that has made baseball America's pastime for the last century and a half is that it's a game anyone can go to. Precisely because there are 160-something games a year, you can go to a game for a couple bucks. You often need to sell a kidney to get a ticket for an NFL game. So while the shortened schedule helps football in terms of TV viewership, the longer schedule allows for more people to go to baseball games.

Whatever, I like both.

And I don't know much about Dane Cook, but I have noticed that it's pretty trendy to hate him these days. I did think one of his jokes was funny that I heard: he's in a post office in line, the guy behind him sneezes on him, so he says "God bless you." The guy starts going on haughtily about how he doesn't believe in God, but believes when he dies his body will decay and become incorporated in the earth. So Cook says he hopes he becomes part of a tree, gets cut down and turned into paper that becomes his Bible. The delivery was better, obviously, but I thought it was pretty funny. I haven't really seen anything else of his except Employee of the Month.

Posted by Dan | September 18, 2007 8:59 AM

While Dane Cook is five different kinds of awful cooked in a crap basket, the whole football-baseball debate always comes back to a far superior comedian, George Carlin. Just listen to his diatribe and you catch immediately the inherent difference in the spirit of these two games, and how curious it is to see the country sway one way or the other. Now, in light of these commercials you can add the following:

Football will always play up the glory, the majesty, the weight and importance of the single game, a single day, a single moment. We play on Sunday, at 3:00. You and the rest of the country will be there. Get a bucket to pee into. We'll bronze the winning quarterback so he can be remembered in legend...always.

In Baseball, it takes about a month, give or take, maybe two...Hell it takes about a week of playing, just to get past the first round. Don't worry, we'll get around to it...Just clear your schedule, okay? You know, if you don't have to much to do. And if you need to hit the head, don't worry about it...it takes, like, thirty minutes to change pitchers. Oh, and we'll give the player's their trophy and rings next year.

Posted by John-Boy | September 18, 2007 10:10 AM

I was out at a local trivia night at my favorite tavern. A major question involved identifying a "male entertainer" based on a variety of clues, with declining point value as more clues were revealed. The answer turned out to be Dane Cook. I protested that this was misleading as he is not entertaining, to no avail.

Posted by wph | September 18, 2007 1:43 PM

I think this is just an example of one of the tragedies of life.

While i don't know the age of everyone who reads or comments on this blog, i think its fair to say that at 23, i'm probably among your younger readers(i could be wrong, as i don't know the demos of your readers).

That said, i must say, Dane Cook is awesome. And the fact that you don't think so, just shows how out of touch you are. Dane Cook is FUNNY. . And the fact that guys like you don't like him, is no surprise. His comedy isnt tailored for older/middle aged, family types.

Its a known fact that when you get old, or at least older, you totally lose your sense of humor and you lose your sense of what's cool. This inevitibly leads to awful "comedies" like "Two and a Half Men" being successes.

I don't blame you. Its nothing you really have no control over. Its just a natural process in life, one that i too, will probably go through. I just hope i can put it off as long as possible.

Posted by freaktown | September 18, 2007 2:36 PM

I'm 23, and Dane Cook is terrible. Go see Dave Attell, he's actually funny.

Posted by mad6798j | September 18, 2007 2:48 PM

'Two and a Half Men' is pretty dreadful, but my (old!) parents watch it and once I laughed at something that little kid on the show said, So that's one more time that show has made me laugh than Dane Cook has. But he's not all that different from the show, frankly - he's about as far from hip and cutting edge as you can get. In fact, he'd fit right in on 'T&1/2M.'

And I like both football and baseball, so I don't have a horse in this race. But seriously, who chooses a product based on commercials any more?

Posted by Woody Bombay | September 18, 2007 3:23 PM

I'm 27, and Dane Cook is terrible. Thanks, mad6798j, for mentioning Attell. He can tell a joke.

"Sangwitch," is not a punchline, Dane.

Posted by John-Boy | September 18, 2007 3:23 PM

Well, I'm 24, and I'm not sure how much that extra year has aged me, but I also think Dane Cook is pretty lame. Dave Attell does have some good bits, Louis C.K. is also much funnier.

Also have to second the awesomness of that Merriman/Jackson ad. I watch me lots of sports TV (usually eat breakfast to Sportscenter) and I haven't seen anything comparable in a long time.

Posted by Just Another Greg | September 18, 2007 3:27 PM

Several points :
-Dane Cook is lame. It's not even open for debate.
-George Carlin used to be funny, but he's lost it. Don't believe me? Watch The Aristocrats or his last HBO special or just point me to a single good joke he's had in the past 15 years. He used to be bitter/angry/funny, now he's just bitter and angry.
-Bill Engvall is funny. he's not breaking any new comedy ground, but he actually makes people laush, unlike Dane or George these days.
-Larry the Cable Guy is funny in small doses. He has about 15 minutes worth of material, and it's really good, but that's it.
-The Merriman/Jackson ad is terrible. I turn it off everytime it on. It's too long, too repetitive, and what's with the Scottish music??

Posted by Mark B | September 18, 2007 4:17 PM

Anyone who thinks Dane Cook is funny likely will look back on harassing junior members of their frat as a highlight of their life.

Posted by Jay | September 18, 2007 4:59 PM

I'm 22 and Dane Cook makes life not worth living. I've never had a friend of any age who didn't find him despicable. Who the hell are his fans?

Posted by BP | September 18, 2007 5:04 PM

mad6798j writes: "I'm 23, and Dane Cook is terrible. Go see Dave Attell, he's actually funny."

I'm 45 and I've seen them both. Attell is great. Cook is worse than Robin Williams is NOW, and that's hard to do.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 18, 2007 7:06 PM

Forgetting about Dane Cook for a minute (easy enough for me- I seem to be the one person here with no strong opinion of the guy at all)...

Football has passed baseball out for several reasons- but the biggest, I think, is that football's millions of fans love the GAME, while baseball'l millions of fans love their team and their team only.

Last Sunday night, millions of people in New York, Miami, San Francisco, Denever and Seattle watched the New England Patriots demolish the San Diego Chargers. That's because a casual football fans is eager to watch a marquee game involving two top teams, even if they're not teams that fan has a rooting interest in. Casual fans will tune in to watch the Colts play the Cowboys. They'll tune in to see the Bears play the Steelers. If it promises to be a good game, football fans will watch.

ABC tried to do "Monday Night Baseball," remember? It was a flop, and not just because Howard Cosell was the worst, most uniformed baseball announcer of all time! It flopped because even a passionate Dodger fan typically doesn't care about a Yankees-Tigers matchup, and a rabid Red Sox fan doesn't care about a Braves-Cardinals showdown. A baseball fan tunes in to see HIS team, and won't tune in to watch even big events like the playoffs or the World Series if his team isn't in it.

I'm a football fan. I've always called myself a baseball fan, but it's more accurate to say I'm a Yankees fan. Ask most "baseball fans" and hey'll probably concede they're really Cubs fans or Phillies fans, NOT real baseball fans.

Posted by astorian | September 19, 2007 12:57 PM

Doesn't it betray a certain misanthropism to say that Cook is indefensibly bad when he's the world's most popular stand-up comedian?

I think that Slate article "missed the mark." The guy writes that Cook is an undangerous comedian who doesn't create ideological friction, and so he's the stand-up that a mother could love. If the question is 'who most ably challenges the status quo,' then he's right -- Dane Cook is awful. Naturally, that's not the mission of a comedian. How dangerous was Steve Martin strumming a banjo with an arrow through his head? How transgressive was he as a 'wild and crazy guy'? Other beloved comedians who were merely silly include Adam Sandler and the Three Stooges.

So, unlike most comedy consumers, Cook doesn't make you laugh; time to call him objectively unfunny? Please take the more prudent course.

Posted by Gyrd | September 19, 2007 6:21 PM

Gyrd writes: "Other beloved comedians who were merely silly include Adam Sandler and the Three Stooges."

You're blind. The Stooges were all about class warfare and slamming "the swells." Pay attention.

Dane Cook is about mugging and funny voices and not offending your Baptist mom. He's Carrot Top with a normal haircut.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 19, 2007 10:14 PM

For one thing Dane Cook is not the most popular comedian in America. His movies consistantly fail at the box office, and for the past few years, Larry the Cable Guy has been the comedian who sells the most tickets.

Posted by mad6798j | September 19, 2007 11:40 PM

Yes, there were multiple Stooge episodes wherein a fancy lady got a cream pie in the face. There were also episodes that mocked Nazis and Japs.

My point is that these guys aren't like Bill Maher or Margaret Cho or Lenny Bruce (or Dennis Miller). I could be an aristocrat and laugh at the Stooges. It's hard to be a Republican and laugh at Bill Maher.

Bryan Curtis' point (in the Salon article) is that you need to be persuasive and have a message in order to be a good and worth while comedian. If you're going to let the warm, goofy and subtle Three Stooges treatment of class meet this standard, then Dane Cook also is a 'message comedian,' because he jokes that people should say 'bless you' when you sneeze.

Posted by Gyrd | September 20, 2007 6:48 AM

I don't know anything about Dane Cook, but a lot of people look lame when compared to Don Cheadle.

Posted by jasperjava | November 3, 2007 12:02 AM