I’m as surprised as anyone to be discussingHey Hey It’s Saturday in 2021,but there are a few things we need to unpack here.
The first thing to point out isHey Hey has already been cancelled. Twice. It was cancelled in 1999. It came back in 2009,had a truly awfulblackface incident that embarrassed the entire country,and was finally axed for good in 2010. It obviously wasn’t relevant or funny enough 10 or 20 years ago,so yes,Daryl’s right – it also wouldn’t thrive now. Especially when people have the choice to watch literally anything else on a Saturday night.
But Daryl wants to blame this on cancel culture,saying:“You probably could not get away with half the stuff you could on Hey Hey now because of the political correctness and the cancel culture.”
You know what,he’s right again. You couldn’tget away now with a lot of the stuff they did onHey Hey now,because a lot of the stuff they did was blatantly racist,sexist and boring. The difference is most people think it’s a goodthing you can’t “get away with” those kinds of jokes in 2021. It is society as a whole that has decided that watching someone makeracist jokes about guests on their show,orsexist jokes about their co-host is just no longer funny. And it’s the audience’s job to decide what they like and what they want to hear.
Daryl’s next claim was that:“A lot of comics can’t work much because what would have been just tongue-in-cheek previously now can easily get them into trouble.”
Let’s be explicit here. When he talks about ‘tongue-in-cheek’ jokes,we all know what he is referring to. He is referring to jokes directed at minorities,or women,or other groups whose commonality is they don’t have the power. Funny stuff! If a comic can’t get work in 2021 because they rely on those kinds of jokes,that’s a great thing. They shouldn’t. They do not deserve to get work,and yet they still do! Even these comments were made while Daryl was promoting his hosting spot on the rebootedDancing with What I Suppose Passes For Stars These Days.