Posted on 12/17/2008 10:09:36 AM PST by Reaganesque
“Skippyjip,” who says he is not a huge fan of Will Ferrell’s, calls a rehearsal version of Ferrell’s upcoming stage show about George W. Bush “well-crafted,” “smart” and “very, very funny.”
Co-written by Ferrell and his “SNL”/“Anchorman” collaborator Adam McKay, it opens Jan. 20 and closes March 15. HBO will telecast it live, likely on or near closing night.
I love that they’ve already got a guy throwing shoes from the audience!
Hey Harry,
Long time reader, but this is my first scoop/review.
I just saw a staged reading of an early version of Will Ferrell’s new one man Broadway Show “You’re Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush.” The show opens at the Court Theatre on Inauguration Day, and tonight was a sort of test “screening” of Ferrell’s material (about an hour and a half of it, all told). He’s in character, as Dubya, from minute one. There’s some audience interaction, but everything is very scripted. This show was presented by Funnyordie.com, and the (small) cast was a veritable who’s who of Funnyordie and UCB favorites, with Owen Burke reading stage directions, Seth Morris as a secret service agent with a deep-seeded love of The Dance, and Chad Carter as a shoe throwing audience plant.
Whether The Agent will remain a part of the Broadway production is anyone’s guess. I wouldn’t be surprised (or disappointed) to see a full chorus of Dancing Secret Service agents keeping the audience entertained while Dubya dons a flight jacket or loses his grey suit in favor of jeans and a cowboy hat. That being said, I think they would be remiss not to include Seth Morris among said Agents. He’s too funny to be relegated to the Internet and UCB’s Harold shows. Give the man some screen time, or at least a meaty Broadway contract.
Obviously Owen Burke will not be needed to describe “George Duyba being lowered by a helicopter onto the stage” once they’re… y’know… on an actual stage with an actual helicopter, and I’m pretty sure Carter’s shoe-thrower was an impromptu add-in just for tonight. It went over huge, but the event won’t be topical come January 20th. And if this show’s apparent thesis holds water (that Americans have short attention spans and are altogether too forgiving of our leaders’ malpractice), we will have long since forgotten the shoe-hurling Iraqi Journalist and his fate (still TBD). But if Will Ferrell has any say in things, we’ll never forget the man who was the shoe’s intended target. Nor will we forget his historic blunders and incalculable missteps.
I’m not going to give away too much of the funny, but since what I saw was a working version and is likely to change dramatically, it wouldn’t matter anyway. In the show, Ferrell’s Bush stumbles through the telling of his childhood adventures, his collegiate misdeeds, his Gubernatorial days in Texas and on through the 2000 election debacle, September 11th, the subsequent coercion of the press and congress, and the consequent invasion of Iraq… oh, we get a small smattering of Hurricane Katrina to boot. Does is sound like a fairly comprehensive history of our 43rd commander in chief? It is. Does it sound like a scathing portrayal of a sitting US President? It is. More so than I would have expected from the relatively non-controversial Mr. Ferrell. Fact and fiction are blended together generously, but Ferrell does an expert job of winking away the fiction, and letting facts land with painful resonance. The kind of resonance that makes you feel a little ashamed for not noticing anything earlier. Or worse: for noticing and looking away.
Let me say, at this juncture, something that will no doubt open me up to ridicule and dismissal amidst the talkbackers (if you use this): I am not a big Will Ferrell fan. I used to be, kinda, or at least allowed myself to be dragged along for the ride. As America embraced Will Ferrell, I had a sneaking suspicion that we were being tricked. He was the funniest part of SNL for several rocky, rocky years in the show’s history, but was never enough to actually keep me tuned in weekly. I dug him in Old School, where he was used sparingly, and admittedly fell for Anchorman upon my first viewing. Then I got sick of that character. You know the one: the “way less important or talented than he believes himself to be guy who talks very loudly” character. The one he ALWAYS plays. And by the time Step Brothers came out, I found myself thinking “I don’t want to go see Will Ferrell come up with the funniest combination of words he can think of and then yell them… Again. I’ve seen that before.”
But that’s not what this was. This was thought out. It was deliberate, well crafted, and smart. It was also very, very funny. And even though it’s not all that different from what we’ve seen Will Ferrell do, it was an outright treat. Will Ferrell’s Dubya is so good because Dubya is a lot like those other characters. He has the same smug arrogance peppered with utter stupidity that Ron Burgundy or Ricky Bobby has. What Will Ferrell can do, because he’s Will Ferrell, is to bring those alarming comparisons into strict focus, and (more importantly) to that remind us that WE LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT ALL. We made Ricky Bobby our president. We elected Ron Burgundy for a second term. Ferrell doesn’t want you to spend an hour and a half laughing at “strategery” or “miss-underestimate.” He doesn’t even want you to spend the full hour and a half laughing. He actually wants you in there thinking. Thinking about what we allowed one man and his administration to do to our country and the world. It’s a sophisticated show that will only become more so as it continues to develop in the month to come.
My hat is off to you, Mr. Ferrell. I may have been tricked, but I’ve also been suitably impressed.
Ferrell quit being funny a long time ago except perhaps to sophmoric tastes (no offense to his fans here). He is now one of those comics who visibly tries too hard and just doesn’t have that touch anymore.
I'm with ya. May Hollywood suffer the same fate as the newspaper business. If they wish to shove excrement in the face of half their potential audience may they suffer the natural consequences.
And look what good that did us?
Clinton's wife and enabler was a candidate for Pres and will be the next SOS. Bill Clinton gets what $1,000,000 per speech and is still held in high regard.
President Bush will be a laughing stock of the left and his 'legacy' will the punchline of many jokes for many years.
I do think that the future will look back on President Bush with a far better view then that in which he is currently viewed. But that will take an event, huge in scope, that will finally wake up the left to the fact that we are still at war with Islamic Jihadists.
But if (when?) such an event occurs, we will hear that Bush "did not do enough" to prevent it.
I wonder if SNL will ever lampoon a Democrat the way they habitually do Republicans?
* holds breath
* passes out
The only way I'd laugh at Will Ferrell, would be if he caught on fire.
Because the libs have the microphone, and we don't.
Mitchell was the definition of a nothing person...a total zero. I've had dealings with him on several separate occasions, and come away disgusted every time. The best was when he came to speak at my High School the day after Iran-Contra broke in the news....and he made the mistake of opening up the floor to questions.
I suppose that he figured "Eh, it's just a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds. What do they know?" He wound up getting a grilling that would make the most ornery FReeper smile. It was a beautiful sight to watch him squirm until the school principal figured out a way to get him off the hook.
WBill Jr is a big fan of Curious George. There's a real resemblance there. Just don't point it out.
I gotta disagree with you there. He's held in high regard by people that would hold him in high regard anyway. To the other 80% of the country, he's the punchline to a Monica Lewinsky joke.
I'm not President Bush's largest fan, but I think that history will remember him better than current events do. Particularly if Obama screws up as much as I think he will. 2000-2008 will be the "Good old Days", if that happens.
The retarded attacks against G.W. Bush will look even more pathetic after people get a taste of the punk Hussein’s “leadership”.
Even the most devoted scrubbing by the LameStream Media won’t be able to take the stink off.
That being said, Bush could’ve been more conservative the past four years—if he had held the line on these bailouts and spending, we wouldn’t have a Demon-Rat majority in the government now.
LOL! I like that one!! May have to use it sometime. hehe.
That may be (Well, OK, he is...) but, he didn’t write the article.
I would not have put the number that high, but otherwise I agree with you.
Thank you for posting that. It’s information like this that makes Free Republic unique. First-hand account reports are always the best.
Oh, and let me tell you how heartbroken I am that Georgie struggled with your group. He’s used to having a “captive” audience of liberal worshipers.
“Ferrell says his Bush on Broadway will surprise” - considering Ferrell attended the pricey Hollywood fundraiser for Obama, I’m not holding my breath that the left will be surprised at all with what they see.
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