I started watching Greg Gutfeld back in 2010 when he had his 3 am comedy Red Eye on Fox News.\u00a0 With his small ensemble of regulars and a bunch of Fox News and right-wing and libertarian guests the show was an incredibly refreshing change from the lefty late night hosts that had already become too unbearable to listen to.<\/p>\n
It was obviously a show that was produced on a shoestring budget and existed without any of the heavyweight advantages that the networks can provide to an entertainment show.\u00a0 We weren’t going to see any movie stars or top echelon politicians on this show.\u00a0 Instead you had a folded newspaper with paper eyes taped on used as a ventriloquist dummy while one of the cast represented the views of the New York Times in a silly voice.\u00a0 Or there would be a video of robots in their parents’ basement, reciting the talking points of George Soros’ Media Matters in a cadence that sounded like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.<\/p>\n
This was not a show that could compete with The Tonight Show or even Conan O’Brien.\u00a0 I even remember a clip of David Letterman making fun of Greg’s name and calling him a nobody.\u00a0 But it was often very funny.\u00a0 Gutfeld was a social liberal by all appearances.\u00a0 I’d say he was a libertarian.\u00a0 But he wasn’t attacking the Right.\u00a0 After a few years when the show ran out of steam and several of the regulars left so did I.\u00a0 But my impression was that Gutfeld was not against us and was doing the best he could to speak to more than the left side of America.\u00a0 And for that I give him credit.<\/p>\n
In the last few years Gutfeld has been ubiquitous on Fox News.\u00a0 He’s a regular on their talk show “The Five.”\u00a0 And he now has his own late night comedy show that is much better supported by the network than Red Eye was.\u00a0 And after viewing a few episodes I see that Gutfeld knows where his audience is.\u00a0 I don’t doubt he’s still the same guy but he’s towing the line and giving Donald Trump his due.\u00a0 And that’s good.\u00a0 Gutfeld is far enough to the right of the rest of Hollywood and the Media to be considered one of us.\u00a0 I wouldn’t want him deciding policy but I’m more than happy to see him telling jokes on a late night show.\u00a0 After all Johnny Carson was probably a liberal.\u00a0 But he tried to be an equal opportunity mocker of the left and the right.\u00a0 I can live with that.<\/p>\n