I have never cared for Bill Maher’s work.  His sardonic persona has carried him through Politically Incorrect and Real Time with Bill Maher, giving him some weight as a pundit.  Religulous (Super Channel: first airs July 10, 9:01 PM ET) should theoretically help me understand Maher’s humour better, since I like Larry Charles’ work on Seinfeld and Dilbert.

I hated Dilbert the comic strip at one time.  Charles and Scott Adams’ work on the cartoon version converted me.  In Dilbert‘s second season, Charles and Adams explored topics like faith vs. science and the existence of God, keeping the shows funny in the process.  It had the thematic focus Religulous doesn’t, as Religulous is too scattershot to be of any lasting impact.

I don’t think Religulous is a massive ego-stroke for Maher, as he can be insightful at times, but the film touches on one topic for a minute or two before jumping to the next.  Sometimes a segue between topics is provided, but not often.  The main problem with this approach is that one doesn’t get a real understanding of religion’s perceived faults.  Maher interviews someone, bounces an observation off the interviewee and moves on to his next one night stand.  All that’s missing is a rimshot.

Larry Charles, for his part, adds to Religulous‘ shallowness.  He leavens the interviews by adding relevant clips, pictures and/or captions to each one.  For instance, a mention of Mormon temple garments is backed by captions explaining what they protect against.  Since the joke is not yet subtle enough, Apollo Braun’s “Party in My Pants” plays in the background.  This is supposed to be funny, but I find Charles’ approach annoying.

Religulous suffers most from a cheap ending.  After ninety minutes of religion-mocking, Maher addresses the audience with “but seriously, folks…” for five minutes and change.  In this case he argues for “rational” people to take a stand against religion.  This isn’t a spoiler, since Maher established his position on religion earlier in the film.  In that case, why not make a point-by-point argument refuting the major world religions in an intelligent manner, rather than riffing off Borat?

Religulous doesn’t work, as Maher doesn’t approach religion differently from others in the comedy field.  George Carlin approaches the same central tenet as Religulous in one of his stand-up routines.  It’s funnier and more to-the-point.  Julia Sweeney, Doug Stanhope and Lewis Black have all mined religion’s humourous potential in a less smug way than Maher does in Religulous.

Hell, even Dilbert was better.  Dogbert is a magnificent bastard, after all.

In the end, Religulous amounts to nothing more than 101 minutes of Bill Maher spanning the globe in search of the Anti-Religious Equation.  I’d rather make up my own mind about religion than have someone else tell me how and what I should believe.

Sketch comedy in the late 2000s tends to follow an absurdist, high-concept model more often than not.  The vast majority of shows from this era will doubtless age ten years from now, as the absurdist model becomes overused and new groups rebel against it.  Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was considered edgy in 1968, while Turn-On was once the height of bad taste.  People also used to think Jerry Lester was funny.  Tastes change, and so do the comedy stylings.

I prefer the style of The Whitest Kids U’ Know (Super Channel: April 8, 11PM ET) to that of its closest modern competitors.  I appreciate the efforts put forth by Human Giant and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, yet WKUK is the show I actually laugh at.  The Whitest Kids U’ Know is crude at first glance, but there’s some intelligence behind its lowbrow façade.

The WWII sketch that starts off the first thirty-minute episode of season three is a case in point.  Four people enter Hitler’s bunker and come across Charlie Chaplin.  The Whitest Kids U’ Know players go for the predictable climax (Charlie Chaplin kills everyone) and then smack the viewer upside the head with a grossly inappropriate ending.  The Whitest Kids U’ Know has that duality with many of its sketches – predictable one point, surprising the next.

The second thirty-minute episode of WKUK‘s third season is stronger overall due to some inspired sketches.  J.J. Martin, the punkest man on the planet, can make terrible folk songs punk as fuck, while J.P. Barger and Son Trading Post sells water balloons in the American Old West.  The first thirty-minute episode has a lovely musical number about God’s connection to obsessive compulsion, so it’s not far off in quality.

Not every sketch on The Whitest Kids U’ Know works.  For instance, the Lord of the Rings sketch in episode two hinges on its greatest plot hole, Gandalf not utilizing a giant eagle to fly Frodo and his friends to Sauron’s volcano.  It’s an obvious complaint which The Whitest Kids U’ Know don’t put a fresh spin on.  The sketch is saved by an out-of-place rape reference, but more rape references kill the sketch again.

A 3:2 good sketch:bad sketch ratio is maintained overall.  It’s not the best ratio for sketch comedy, but The Whitest Kids U’ Know are also throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.  IFC airs the third season in fifteen-minute blocks, which may be the best format for The Whitest Kids U’ Know – if you hate this show, more than fifteen minutes is akin to torture.  There is very little middle ground between fans and haters of this show, so Trevor Moore and co. have to be doing something right.

WKUK isn’t as polished or as good as Mr. Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but the show can be genuinely funny at times.  WKUK will air on relatively obscure stations like IFC and Super Channel for years to come, and they’re probably the best places for the show anyway.  Assy McGee has proven there are far worse things on television than Trevor Moore’s brand of lowbrow humour.