First Look: ‘The Greg Gutfeld Show’

by Ryan Meehan

Sunday night brought us the first episode of ‘The Greg Gutfeld Show’, FOX News’ bizarre new television program from which none of us really knew what to expect.  Being a fan of Greg’s and the proud owner of all three of his books, I consider myself to be pretty well versed as to the product he is trying to put on the air.

That being said, I have no clue what it was that I just saw.  The word “weird” seems to be the theme of the subject matter, but doesn’t even begin to do this hour of madness justice.   

The Facebook forums are lit up with all sorts of takes regarding the premiere, very few of them being middle of the road.  People seem to either love it or hate it.  Since it is nearly impossible to give a comprehensive review of something so unbelievably strange, what I’m going to do is simply list a set of bullet points that I jotted down while trying to make sense of what I saw on my TV screen.  That way it will seem less analytical and more so a series of statements that I was able to gather in my first experience checking out the show.

– The monologue was great.  Nothing really needs to change there, and very similar to the old-school ‘Greg-a-logues’ that got a lot of people hooked on FNC-RE in the first place.

– If you aren’t a fan of Katherine Timpf, tough shit.  Life is going to be difficult for you in the very near future, because in some way or another she’s going to be on television a lot over the next eighteen months.

– Love him or hate him, you have to admire Tucker Carlson for always taking one for the team.  If only Jesse Joyce had been there to tell him he looked like “a middle aged Dennis the Menace if he had grown up to be a gay dentist“…

– I thought the Robert O’Neill interview was genius.  Plus, that guy offed one of the biggest dickheads in world history.  I can’t remember the exact quote, but Greg said something along the lines of “Show me on this Candy Land game board how Bin Laden was killed”.  Classic Gutters.

– I sincerely hope Joanne Nosuchinsky’s segment gets better.  That was really difficult to watch.  And for the record, I’m not on the JoNo Hater Train which suggests she doesn’t belong on The Eye.  (Also for the record, this post has nothing to do with Bill Schulz at all or the fact that she replaced him on that program.  Come September it will be two years since Bill left, and everybody needs to get the fuck over it…)

– They do need to find some sort of way to work Andy Levy into the mix, because right now he and Greg are not collaborating on anything and that’s a shame.  Keep in mind, if they had never done so we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all and would have been watching something else since 2007.

– I’m sure he doesn’t care, but the very obvious shot Greg took at Jon Stewart at the end of the show is probably going to be the subject of some sort of retaliation.  Especially when you consider the way that Comedy Central edits those clips to make everybody at Fox News seem like they push crippled people into pits of fire all day long.  The only reason I’m bringing it up is because this might prevent anybody who appears on Red Eye from getting any panel slots on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.

So as you can see, there’s a lot going on here.  Much like any other form of entertainment, people are going to have their opinions and there is no right or wrong answer.  There is one woman who runs one of the Red Eye forums that I have a serious amount of respect for, and based on her post last night I can say I pretty much disagree with her on all counts regarding her takes on the show.  However the one thing that kept popping up in the forums that I did agree with is the fact that initially Red Eye was a complete fucking mess to begin with, and eight years later it’s still on the air doing killer numbers at 3AM.  What I think a lot of these people are suggesting is that it’s almost unthinkable to judge this show based on one hour-long program.  I’m going to continue to tune-in to see how TGGS evolves, but it kind of pisses me off how certain fans of Greg’s work think they know how the show will fare based on this one episode.  It’s completely illogical and I guess if I’m disappointed in anything it’s how people who clearly know better are rushing to judgment about the future of the series.  Only time, unicorns, and slow loris pictures will tell.

Once again thanks for visiting First Order Historians and enjoying more of the internet’s finest in user generated content.

Meehan