The day of every writer for late-night television starts the same way: Check the news, see what’s funny in there.
It almost doesn’t matter what the subject is. If you’re a late-night writer, a joke about that subject is going to pop into your head, whether you like it or not. If it doesn’t, you’re in the wrong business.
But what if the big story is about a man being gunned down in midtown Manhattan in a brazen assassination, and the man is a non-celebrity businessman from a Midwest state with a wife and two children?
Thursday night, late-night shows began answering how they would approach this week’s much-covered killing of businessman Brian Thompson on a New York City street; and the answer was… silence. Mostly.
Alone among the traditional late-night shows, The Daily Show went there, straight ahead and really funny, with a series of jokes delivered with no-apologies verve from this week’s host, Ronny Chieng.
About the assassin writing the words “deny, defend and depose” on the shell casings of his bullets: “This guy knows that there are so many bullet casings on the streets of New York, and he wanted to make sure we knew which ones were his.”
And: “Now they’re trying to interpret what deny, defend and depose means. And it looks like either it’s a criticism of the health insurance industry, or this guy was just trying to solve the Wordle on his bullets.”
No “whooohs” from the audience, those gasps of shock that signal,“Yeah, it’s funny but how could you?”
Instead, plenty of laughs. Yes, the subject matter, a brazen, cold-blooded murder captured on surveillance video, was highly sensitive. So much so that media outlets uniformly cut the video off before the bullets struck the victim.
But there were clearly elements in the incident, beginning with the mass fascination it has kicked off, that can be mocked or satirized.
Obviously, there is a line between mock and macabre. Any joke that strays too close to seeking humor in the cruel fate suffered by the victim is not going to fly anywhere on television. Notably, The Daily Show never mentioned the victim’s name Thursday night. They showed no video of the actual attack.
As much as possible, the act itself was described impersonally. It was about the news of what happened, more than what happened.
Chieng’s monologue did address one potential area of controversy that has sprung up around the murder: backlash from people who have felt abused by the health insurance system, some of whom have gone on social media and, without shame or conscience, more or less celebrated the death of a major health industry executive. But again, the reference was oblique, not dead-on.
“Now the cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their health-care plan and has access to guns.”
The question going forward: if this story goes on, does the rest of the late-night menu serve up jokes their writers can’t help but continue to whip up?
First place to check: SNL, back this weekend with a new show. Surely, if any franchise is going to shrug off the taste questions and go there, big, it’s likely to be “Weekend Update.”
How reluctant can you be to tell a joke on this subject if you have previously told ones like this: “Pope Francis said sexual pleasure is a gift from God. Unfortunately, the answer was to the question: Should the Church still have altar boys?”
Under Colin Jost and Michael Che, “Update” has fully embraced the “whoooh” joke. Not that they’re the first to do so.
The news story that resonates most when considering taste vs laughs in late night is the murder trial of O. J. Simpson. Memorably, David Letterman banned Simpson jokes in the aftermath of the twin murders he was accused of, while Dave’s rival Jay Leno filled his monologues with them for months—and saw his ratings rise.
Letterman eventually relented.
Most notably, SNL, then under the starring role of Norm Macdonald, delivered an unrestrained bombardment of O.J. jokes every week on “Update.” The jokes wound up costing him his job, but are now among the biggest and most “whooohed” laughs in SNL history.
“The most popular Halloween mask this year is O.J. Simpson. The most popular Halloween greeting is: ‘I’ll kill you and that guy’s who’s bringing over your glasses—or treat.’ ”
The unknown is how any jokes about the Manhattan murder will sit with the show’s chief decision-maker, Lorne Michaels.
Not much is off limits at SNL, but the show’s creator has demonstrated sensitivity on potentially disturbing topics in the past. For the most part these have been national and New York-centric tragedies that have no acceptable humorous aspects, like the 9/11 attacks.
Michaels had some reluctance about the O.J. material. Jim Downey, one of the show’s legendary writers, who supervised “Update” when Macdonald was the anchor, told the Washington Post last April.
“I always felt kind of bad. In order to protect us and also his independence at the show, he had to fight for something that he really didn’t personally believe in as much as other things. He certainly liked some of ‘Update,’ but O.J. jokes were never his favorite things because it was, after all, a murder.”
The best assessment of comedy material that skirts the edges of acceptability comes down to a subjective but morally defensible line.
How funny is the joke?
The Daily Show cleared the bar with plenty to spare Thursday night. Still, not hard to be a little overeager, misjudge your steps, and fall on your face.
