Left-wing comedian Bill Maher on Friday acknowledged the success of Gutfeld! host Greg Gutfeld for achieving something unique in the world of conservative comedy, as the show beat out left-wing late-night shows dominated by liberal hosts, earning Gutfeld the title as the “king of late-night.”
Speaking to his panel, Maher said, “There’s a new king of late-night and his name is Greg Gutfeld,” referencing a headline referring to Greg Gutfeld as the “King of Late Night as His Fox News Show Beats Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon.”
“Fox News found a good thing,” Maher observed. “They can make fun of liberals and they are doing it to great success.”
“I’ve been asked over the years many times, ‘Why isn’t there a conservative comedy?’ And I would always give the answer, which I think was the true answer, ‘There’s not good fodder for it,'” Maher declared.
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“You know, the liberals aren’t crazy. This was my answer for many years. … Now, I don’t think it’s the same situation,” he admitted, explaining that their craziness created an opening for successful conservative comedy.
“I keep saying to the liberals, ‘If what you’re saying sounds like an Onion headline, stop.’ And that’s why — this is why there’s an opening for conservative comedy,” Maher said. “Because when you tear down statues of Abraham Lincoln in the Land of Lincoln, ‘Land of Lincoln cancels Lincoln,’ it’s an Onion headline.”
“You know, ‘Three-year-olds pick their own gender’ is an Onion headline,” he said, referencing the left’s pursuit of gender fluidity and woke culture wars. “You know, a lot of this stuff that’s going on the left now, it’s, you know, ‘Seattle votes to decriminalize crime.’ Now, the problem is that they don’t know how to do comedy, but if they found someone who did, they could … Because comedy goes where the funny is. And there is funny on the left now as well as the right.”
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While panelist Katty Kay described Gutfeld! As “pretty predictable,” Maher added, “I could say the same thing about the other shows. Absolutely.”
“It is the one true opinion out there. If you don’t have the one true opinion, don’t go in front of the audience that comes because they don’t like it,” Maher said. “And they’re there more to clap for the opinion they already believe in than to laugh. And that’s what changed.”
Indeed, a Newsweek article released this week deemed Gutfeld! the king of late-night television “joining the likes of Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and David Letterman, all of whom have held the title in the past.”
Nielsen data showed Gutfeld! scoring a higher audience than Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert for the full week of August 16-22, garnering 2 million viewers each night. Colbert fell behind with 1.89 million.
Newsweek referred to it as a “significant milestone” regardless of the show beginning slightly earlier — 11 p.m. Eastern — than the others.
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