Regular viewers of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" know that there's an ongoing and unfunny, tired spoof of the "O'Reilly Factor" with the ordinarily very funny Darrell Hammond (in the pic at left) as O'Reilly. A big part of every recurring sketch is viewer mail that Hammond/"O'Reilly" reads at the end of each sketch; the "mail" is always stuff like "Dear Bill, You are the all-knowing God of my universe and everyone else's universe. In all directions of time, now and forever. Anyone who says otherwise should be violently murdered. Keep up the good work! Signed, Phil from Indiana." Yeah, it was kind of halfway funny the first time SNL did it, and by that I mean that pretty much everybody can and should laugh at themselves a little bit, especially public figures, and O'Reilly seems to have a good sense of humor, so no harm, no foul, right? Except now SNL is doing the same fake, over the top O'Reilly mail bit practically every weekend, and it's just dumb and not funny, and more important, bears to relation in reality to the fan mail that the real O'Reilly reads on his show.
Because, as we all know, nobody would ever read fan mail like that on a real cable news show. Right, Lou Dobbs?
DOBBS: Taking a look now at your thoughts....Joe in New York [writes:] "Fire Lou Dobbs? The people advocating this are a bunch of pusillanimous cowards. Hell, not only should Lou not be fired , he should get a raise and a promotion for the great job he is doing. His program should be mandatory for all aliens, legal and illegal. They should have to quote him verbatim as a prerequisite to stay in the country. Keep up the great job you're doing. Don't give an inch. We're all behind you. Lou."
I promise you, I, nor any member of my family wrote that.
As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.
Tina Fey, we're all waiting for SNL's next big sendup: Lou Dobbs. I totally see Chris Parnell as Dobbs in a blonde wig. Well?
