Tag Archives: humor

Wamapoke County Public Radio

Parks and Recreation has done two fantastic sendups of public/community radio. I realize that making fun of public radio is like shooting fish in a barrel – it’s for that very reason that most spoofs just aren’t funny. I think most of these efforts fail because they hitch all of their jokes to the easy targets, such as the (over)enunciation standards of NPR or Pacifica. Or, they try to go for “easy laughs” by trying to skewer the Left, but end up replicating the oppressive sexist structures of corporate radio that NPR exists to stand against in the first place.

At the very least, they aren’t as absurdly, unintentionally funny as community radio can be all on it’s own earnest self. And that’s the key to what makes Parks and Recreations take on it so funny – they get it that the people who do this kind of radio are so deeply invested in a very romantic idea of the power of community radio, with a little ill-considered corporate marketing in the mix just to keep things bizarre and off-kilter, and they know how to take those elements and make them hyper-realistic without being cruel.

Leslie Knope’s appearance on Wamapoke County Public Radio on last week’s episode, “Pawnee Commons,” was pitch-perfect.


embedded link: “Pawnee Commons” into

Someone took a perfectly good Johnny Depp & put a bird on it

There are many cultural issues regarding the Lone Ranger remake but every time I start to think about them, my brain derails with the thought, “Someone took a perfectly good Johnny Depp & put a fucking bird on it.”

I deeply question Vanity Fair’s assertion that Johnny Depp makes this look cool in any way shape or form.

Note to vanity fair: Bird. On. Head.


[embedded video: Portlandia: Put a bird on it]

This was a draft I found hanging around. It started life on my facebook page on March 8, 2012 so I don’t remember where I planned to go with it. This is what you get.

Doctor Who fans will want to try the Daleks Relaxation program.