“The only way to increase property values on Sesame Street is to get rid of the homeless.” – Daniel Tosh
When I was a college freshman, Daniel Tosh came to my school to perform his stand-up act. It was 2004 and his first Comedy Central Presents special had premiered the prior year, so I was relatively familiar with the young comedian. Tosh’s performance took place in a small conference room inside the Student Union building. There couldn’t have been more than 100 people in attendance. I remember thinking that Tosh’s act was pretty funny (although I was a bit disappointed that a lot of the jokes were recycled from his Comedy Central special), but nothing about the evening gave me any indication that the comedian was on the precipice of television stardom.
A lot has changed in the seven years since Daniel Tosh came to Towson University. His clip-show, Tosh.0, has become a massive success for Comedy Central, consistently beating out CC juggernauts Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart in the ratings. Clip-shows are nothing new — programs like The Soup and America’s Funniest Home Videos have been milking clips of people doing/saying dumb stuff for decades. So what is it about Daniel Tosh and Tosh.0 that seems to have struck such a chord with its audience?
This is a difficult question to answer definitively. There are countless factors that go into making a television show popular and qualifying them is an impossible feat. It’s clear that one of the major reasons Tosh.0 is such a hit is because the show is damn funny, and often hilarious. But there has to be something else to it, something deeper that has propelled the show to a position of prominence in the pop culture pantheon.
Here’s my theory: Daniel Tosh is the embodiment of the “Internet bully” phenomenon. Tosh.0 has a distinctive mean streak that simply isn’t usually present in its clip-show predecessors. The Soup certainly skewers the subjects of its videos, but it’s generally done in a satirical, sarcastic manner, not maliciously. Tosh attacks the people in his clips, going straight for the jugular. He provides viewers with the twisted (but completely natural) pleasure of picking on society’s weaklings without the guilt of actually participating.
He seems to be able to tap into the portion of our collective psyche that prefers to laugh AT people as opposed to WITH them. The people in the clips he presents aren’t “subjects” so much as they’re “victims.” To listen to Tosh’s jokes is like reading the comments section below a Rebecca Black or Antoine Dodson YouTube video, complete with all of the racism, homophobia, and plain old-fashioned bigotry that characterize such forums. Tosh has become a hero in the eyes of these “cyber-bullies” because he has the balls to attack his targets without the shield of an anonymous user name.
Tosh is smart enough to realize that he needs to sprinkle in a healthy dose of self-deprecation in order to differentiate himself from your common, run of the mill school-yard bully. The more “sophisticated” (for lack of a better term) viewers of Tosh.0 probably find Daniel’s self-inflicted wounds to be the most endearing aspect of the show, but my fear is that your “average” viewer is more interested in the slew of completely unapologetic black/gay/women/Jewish, etc. jokes.
Looking back, it’s no surprise really that Daniel Tosh has carved out a niche for himself by ridiculing strangers in video clips pulled from the Internet. In fact, the funniest part of the stand-up act I saw in college was when he stepped offstage and started ripping on my classmates in the audience.
Reviewing an individual episode of a show like Tosh.0 is kind of like watching a single baseball game out of a 162-game season. Taken by itself, it’s hard to contextualize and at a certain point you just say, “It was a pretty good game,” or “It totally sucked,” and you start running down highlights.
The baseball analogy is particularly apropos in this instance, as this week’s Web Redemption features the young man who was tased (or is it “tasered”?) by security personnel at a Phillies game after he jumped the outfield fence and proceeded to sprint around the diamond. As far as Web Redemptions go, this one is pretty weak. The source material (the video of the kid getting tased) isn’t all that funny or riveting to begin with and the gag about turning the tables on the Rent-a-Cop who tased him isn’t particularly inspired. However, I was fascinated and surprised to learn that not only did the kid get off with little more than a slap on the wrist, he is still permitted to attend Phillies games.
Highlights of the episode include:
* A rock climber who smashes his face repelling down a cliff. Result: Almost certain brain damage.
* A guy who lets buddies set him on fire while crouched in a trash can so he can rise out of the flames like the phoenix and dunk a basketball. Result: Almost certain second degree burns.
* A convenience store clerk who gets plowed by an out-of-control SUV while taking out the trash in front of a 7-11. Result: Almost certain death.
* A Tosh.0 viewer who submitted a video of himself at sperm bank. I’ll spare you the details. Result: I nearly threw up in my mouth when I saw it.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.