I remember seeing Dennis Miller do a very thoughtful interview with Al Gore back on the Dennis Miller talk show; unlike most hosts, Miller had read Gore’s book — Earth in the Balance — quite carefully and I remember telling a friend “why can’t Charlie Rose do this with his guests’ books”. Even though Miller’s been a full-fledged winger for a while, this kind of news still makes me wince:
Comedian Dennis Miller plans to headline a fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle this Saturday night in Las Vegas.
How the hell did Dennis Miller get so crazy?
BGinCHI
Syphilis.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
I caught him on O’Reilly while flipping through a couple weeks ago, he made a joke about “crazy Grandma Pelosi”, then he corrected himself and said “or GrandPA Pelosi”. This cracked Bill-O and his staff, they seemed to find this genuinely funny. Miller looked like he knew he was scraping the bottom. He’s a sad little man.
Dr. Squid
Breathing his own fart gas while hiding under his bed from the “muzzies”.
Paris
Its a pay check.
Linkmeister
Blame his gig on ABC and Monday Night Football. It’s as good a reason as anything else.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
We predicted two years ago that the right would go crazy. Faced with the relentless advance and indomitable forces of progressive policy, what else can they do? Actually, crazed nihilism is a rational, if undesirable, response.
So here we are two years later and yep, the right is going crazy. What surprises me is that we act surprised.
Martin
Probably 9/11 like a bunch of others. Some people just don’t know how to unshit their pants.
Unabogie
True story. I was working a set painter on “Bordello of Blood”, and I had been working 16 hour days for about two weeks straight. I was working as a standby painter, which is basically a painter whose job it is to “stand by” in case someone hits a wall with equipment and it needs to be repainted. I was working unreal hours with almost no turnaround. And it was during a heat wave and we were working in a hanger at the Van Nuys airport in 111 degree temps. Thankfully, the job was union and I was being paid decent overtime for these ridiculous hours. Miller was sitting around one day, opining that “unions were a good idea once, but now they’re just an excuse for fat and lazy assholes to avoid real work”. And he said this as he enjoyed his air conditioned trailer and his easy work hours.
So how does a guy like that fall so low? He lacks the simply human decency to notice that people around him have to actually work for a living, and thinks Bill O’Reilly represents Real America. In other words, he’s a selfish dumbfuck.
WereBear
He went to the Dark Side.
Seriously. Maybe he was traumatized by 9/11, but you know, who wasn’t? He saw a shift in public opinion and he kissed its ass for gigs.
But comedy is about the truth. That’s why there’s no right wing comedians; if they tell the truth, it sure ain’t funny.
jacy
The way I explain it to my kids: I’m so old, I remember when Dennis Miller was funny.
That was in the ancient Weekend Update days. Since then, not so much. Now he’s just sad and creepy. You know, Victoria Jackson went batshit loony tunes too. Maybe Lorne Michaels was performing a brain destroying experiment and those two were NOT in the control group.
thefncrow
It’s 9/11.
It was a really weird and sudden change. I remember some point in early 2002 when one of those “free HBO” weekends happened and I was excited because I could actually see Dennis Miller. The guest was Gloria Allred, I remember that much.
You can imagine my complete shock and dismay when Miller came out firing about how the pursuits of the ACLU were outright dangerous, and how could you do such a thing after we’ve been attacked, and crap like that.
It seems like 9/11 scared him shitless, and he was ready and willing to jump in the arms of Daddy Bush, who’ll protect us all from those evil monsters under the bed.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Miller’s not crazy, he’s just a whore. He’d lick Cheez-Whiz off of Limbaugh’s anal cyst for an hour of airtime these days.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@WereBear:
If that’s true, he made a horrible business decision. 2001-2009 was like stealing for liberal comics.
Lowkey
@Paris: Boom. You realize your schtick has gotten stale. Which is easier, developing a new act from the ground up, or changing the crowd you play for? I would honestly be astounded if it was any more complex than that.
What boggles me is his delighted acceptance by righty crowds. They do realize he has a long, sordid history as an evil, snark-dripping, elitist, ivory-tower, Hollyweird doubleplus bad wrongthinker, right? They generally think that shit doesn’t wash off, right?
buckyblue
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Martin: Miller himself said 9/11 was his trigger point — as it seemed to be for so much of today’s politics from the Right-ish side of things.
ETA: Al Franklin, in the article, says this is the real Miller we’re seeing now, just as Al became more openly liberal over the years. and I agree; having seen too many fools pull right to get ratings, I don’t see Miller’s actions in that light. This, for better or worse (much worse, in my opinion), is legit.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@thefncrow: “Terrorists are trying to kill me, and my children” I’ve heard him say that several times. Didn’t he move out of LA because he thought he’d be safer up in the hills?
MobiusKlein
Cocaine – it’s a hellofadrug.
Tom Factor
A. “Comedian” and “Dennis Miller” shouldn’t be uttered in the same sentence since he went nuts after 9/11.
B. Sharrrrron Angle won’t understand a single reference, perhaps even word, that Miller spouts.
Benjamin Cisco
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: In calamitas veritas.
BGinCHI
First the terrorists came for Dennis Miller and his kids….
WereBear
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): Maybe he didn’t like so much competition? There never is, on the right wing side. They can’t even do music; they are always stealing from liberal musicians.
Stooleo
@Martin:
Yep, he totally lost his shit after 9/11. What I didn’t know, was that Janine Turner of “Northern Exposure” fame has now become a Teabagger. And I had such a crush on her in the 90’s.
BGinCHI
@Stooleo: She’s been going down that road for quite a while.
Who would have thought a model could fall for the right’s ideas?
Amazing.
Bud
I tired of Miller’s shtick long before he went full wingnut. I remember the time he told some stupid effing joke about lesbians (something about how they never got to feel the earth move) eliciting uncertain laughter from the audience. He followed this by berating people for taking offence at his joke, which was his intent in the first place. Insulting me to my face and then sneering at me for not laughing is not brave or ‘politically incorrect.’ It’s just assholish.
I also remember one of his ‘rants’ about child molestors and how they should kill themselves before they act on their impulses. It wasn’t the content of his remarks that were offensive, but the tone of bravado and speaking truth to power, as if only he were brave enough to stand up to the massive, all-powerful child molestor lobby and tell it like it is!
The guy’s always been a jerk.
D0n Camillo
@Stooleo: That makes me sad. I had a crush on her back then too. I guess she should have stayed a brunette.
Ed Marshall
It wasn’t 9/11, he was apeshit on Bill Clinton somewhere around 1998.
Anthony Carbone
I worked on a show he hosted. He was a terrible asshole to everyone, especially the “little people.” Makes me sad that I liked him on SNL when I was a kid.
JR (not the other JR)
Miller’s a smug asshole. Always has been. He’s just showing it more recently. Now, Victoria Jackson — she is honest to goodness coo-coo for coco puffs.
PanAmerican
@MobiusKlein:
I’ve always gotten a smack vibe from him.
IIRC LowerManhattanite @ the Group News Blog claimed his rep in the industry was lazy-assed.
Beauzeaux
@JR (not the other JR):
I’ve always thought so too. Never could stand him, even during his supposed glory years on SNL.
Jay
I really think Miller peed himself on 9/11. Alot of folks did. I did. The real question should be: have you changed your undies (that is, examined and modified your own worldview) since that day? I have, as have most of y’all. Miller hasn’t, and that’s the rub.
(Sorry for the crudeness, but it makes the point.)
trollhattan
@Beauzeaux:
Yup. When Dana Carvey would come out and do Dennis Miller doing the news–while Dennis Miller was doing the news (“Hows about that, cha-cha?” and tossing his hair) you could tell Miller didn’t like it one bit.
Comedian rule #1: be ready to make fun of yourself at all times.
Bob L
Miller still around? I thought his career died with that show he had on CNBC.
LanceThruster
@Martin:
That’s exactly what he said on an appearance on Bill Maher’s show. He said that after 9/11 he was not going to say a single unkind word against goopers and Bush because they were the party of kicking ass and taking names when it comes to “‘Rab extremists.”
He basically admitted he was willing to make himself a propaganda tool because Murkah had scary dangerous enemies and he was willing to go along with Shrubya or anyone else, provided they were paleo-conservatards, wiping their collective bums with the Constitution (Kenyans w/o proper birth certificates were another matter).
Smug little POS.
rob!
Somewhere, A. Whitney Brown is crying.
Mike in NC
He admitted publicly that he got starbursts from watching Bullhorn Bush. Didn’t take much to send him over the edge. A callous asshole, so it’s a more comfortable fit. He’s probably begging FOX for an audition.
noncarborundum
@Benjamin Cisco:
Calamitate.
mistersnrub
He is a washed up and unemployable (Fox News doesn’t count) loser and extremely bitter about it.
MikeBoyScout
What leads you to believe he hasn’t always been crazy?
Look, Miller grew up in a very distinct neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Castle Shannon, and went to a very distinct school, Keystone Oaks. Stereotypes may be an incorrect way to look at things, but there is truth there. Burghers know exactly what I’m talking about.
Miller’s ascendancy always amazed me. He’s never been very smart, or especially hard working. His shtick was run of the mill in Pittsburgh in the 80’s, and he wasn’t the best at it.
He’s a schmuck and doesn’t deserve the attention given.
nalbar
I think Miller is caught up in Republican incrementalism. When you watch him these days it looks like he is going through the motions.
Don’t forget, right after 9/11 EVERYONE was talking about the ‘enduring Republican majority’. He bought it hook, line, and sinker, and believed he was tying himself to the winning side. In around 2002 it looked like he REALLY wanted a radio show like Limbaugh because that is where the big money is. When that never happened for him it was too late, he was committed. Now days, in order to stay ‘in view’, he HAS to be a tea bagger because that is where the Republican party has taken him.
He wants, but can never have. That makes him angry.
He is a poor, sad retched creature. They will use him until they are done, then kick him to the curb. And he knows it.
The University of I-da-ho
Mark_Adomanis had a good piece a few months ago about “Hollywood types who metamorphosize into neoconservatives.”
Triassic Sands
Miller has been crazy for as long as he has been obnoxious and unfunny — namely forever.
the university of i-da-ho
Mark Adomanis had a good piece a few months ago about Hollywood types who turn into neoconservatives.
Phoebe
My theory of Dennis Miller is that the temperamental seed was always there. I thought he was a smug, rigid, insecure man from the getgo. He could never do skits, just sit behind the desk and smirk. Maybe he was funny in a certain way that our younger selves fell for. I fell for James Woods’ shtick around then. I actually thought his swagger was, ugh, sexy. Now I just think it’s pathetic. And he’s a winger too now. That kind of guy will always be attracted to bombast and black and white thinking and what I guess you all call Brawndo! around here. Like Johnny Ramone [God bless his crazy talented self and RIP].
It’s a personality thing, a guy thing mostly, and very vulnerable to pants-shitting things like 9/11.
the university of i-da-ho
I posted twice. Sorry.
Will
I think it was losing his show in the early ’90s. He thought he was joining the ranks of Letterman, Carson, and his peerage was Jay Leno, not that funny, but still one of the group. Conan was just starting.
Dennis’ show was funny, I thought. But then he got canceled. And he turned the last week of his show into a countdown. And he just got angrier and more bitter as each night went on. The dimming of the lights, the return to obscurity….no Dennis, you will not be up there with Letterman, you will not be a household name. You thought you’d made it, and the unfair world jerked it all away from you. And it hurt, and hurt REALLY BAD.
I don’t think it was 9/11, though that may have been a catalyst on some level…down the road.
The anger and rage and resentment that fuels the right is unusually obvious in someone like Dennis Miller. It’s kind of Nixonian….in the same way that Nixon was shut out from all the cool kids growing up, and the resentment was lifelong.
Josh
Stooleo, Turner was always conservative. And dim: I remember when Rob Morrow left the show, she seemed in interviews to genuinely think she‘d been dumped by “Joel Fleischman.”
As to the discussion we’re having about Dennis Miller, it’s interesting how it maps on to conversations one sees about Hitchens. Not that Miller has any accomplishments.
FlipYrWhig
I’ll admit to having been a Dennis Miller fan in his SNL years — my own teenage years — mostly because he seemed smart rather than silly (like Bill Cosby). He was probably always a libertarian hedonist, like Bill Maher, but Maher moved left and Miller moved right. (Let’s not forget how big a douchebag Maher often was on the Politically Incorrect show, the fons et origo of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and the whole breed of blonde conserva-chicks that followed in their wake.)
The first discordant note I got from Miller was in one of his specials, where he went on a whole rant about how Ross Perot’s running mate, Adm. Stockdale, didn’t deserve to be mocked.
Ruckus
Is Miller just more proof that wingers are just selfish little pricks who wanted to be bullies and stopped maturing at about 7-8 years old?
Steve
Don’t give me this 9/11 BS. It’s like Roy Edroso says: “Ever since 9/11, I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick.”
mclaren
Cocaine.
It’s a hell of a drug.
MikeBoyScout
@52 mclaren:
Wonder who could have been in a blizzard for over a decade?
apistat
There was a fourth plane that flew directly into his sense of humor.
John Bird
1) Dennis Miller got an audience with his TV show,
2) Dennis Miller likes and wants money,
3) Dennis Miller has a hard time making money nowadays,
4) His old audience will pay him money now if he talks crazy,
thus,
5) Dennis Miller will talk crazy.
WereBear
I’ll feel sorry for him when he makes less than me.
Nic
Dennis got his panties in a bunch after 9-11. He wrapped his servile lips around Chimpy’s shriveled choad and never stopped sucking.
Sasha
If Neil Gaiman declares you to be a lost soul, you are (from his journal, Monday, March 22, 2004):
TomG
I gave up on Dennis even before 9/11 – he had said something after the 2000 election about how he planned to pretty much give George W. Bush a pass, so I figured he wasn’t going to be even-handed.
9/11 knocked quite a few people for a loop – Eric Raymond, who used to be pretty good for open-source and pro-gun discussion, jumped into the “we must attack Iraq” wagon with no hesitation. I’ll never figure out what frightened some of these people so much that they lost all sense of what this country REALLY stood for and grasped after security at any cost.
geg6
@MikeBoyScout:
Ha. KO asshole, through and through. My BIL worked with him in his very early days at KDKA-TV on sone afternoon hausfrau talk show. He warmed up the audience and sometimes had on-camera segments and my BIL was a production assistant. Everyone hated him, with the exception of KDKA brass. People didn’t find him funny then either. A lot of people in my BIL’s circle were stunned when he got SNL. He was better on that, but he no Joe Piscopo.
LiberalTarian
Drugs Doug, lots and lots of drugs. Makes you lose your talent and suck up to slimeballs for wingnut welfare.
Earl Butz
This is actually a good question; he wasn’t always so. I think 9/11 set off the same latent psycho gene that got tripped with Cheney – if you’ll recall, Cheney was a greedy, self-centered bastard, but also a very sane Defense Secretary. Countless people have gone on record saying that he lost his shit after 9/11. Miller did as well.
I also think that perhaps an even greater trigger for Miller was his total and complete failure during his one year as an NFL broadcaster. America absolutely despised him, and he damn well knew it. I think the bitterness drove him to the misanthropy that characterizes so many in the modern teabagger/conservative movement.
The Republic of Stupidity
It’s that loooooooooong, sloooooooooow slide to the bottom…
At first it’s not so noticeable…
Then… you start to pick up some momentum, or in Dennis’ case, perhaps Joementum would be more appropriate…
And then, one day, you find yourself at the bottom, shilling for people like Sharron Angle and hoping your saner, more successful friends from the SNL days don’t stumble across you on late-night cable…
drkrick
I’m assuming it was some kind of infection he picked up running around in wet pants after 9/11.
anna missed
Miller is a fool, and as many have pointed out he went totally dark side after 911. Who could ever forget his his descent into absolute drop bottom fascist insanity when he appeared on the Leno Show just after the invasion into Iraq? I think it was on that show where Miller made this very public announcement that those ant-war protesters who depicted Bush as Hitler were the scum of the earth American traitors. To bad for this opportunistic little weasel that he hitched his wagon to the wingnut clown car that will never appreciate the kind of language based humor he worked so hard to develop. He deserves every bit of personal torment and bitterness that comes his way.
rollSound
Miller, after running to hide under Bush’s skirts on 9/11, turned on the left faster than Elia Kazan at the McCarthy hearings. [/DM]
Miller stopped being funny as soon as he didn’t have Rick Overton to write his jokes for him.
PaulW
somewhere after 9/11 Miller sold his soul to the Dubya crowd. I miss the old Dennis Miller who raged about the idiocy of both wings. His ass used to be beautiful…
Gus
@jacy: As I must remind people every time there’s a Dennis Miller thread, he was never funny. I always found him a smug, pedantic prick.
lovable liberal
Testosterone replacement to keep his dick functioning (though not his balls) made his brain stop functioning.
Common choice made by middle-aged men afraid of dying…
DougW
Dennis Miller drank the kool-aid. He’s not dead, just demented…
Mnemosyne
@mistersnrub:
He’s doing radio commercials for a car dealership here in Los Angeles. And not one of the big ones.
artem1s
Akroyd got Nixon, Chase got Ford, Carvey got Bush the Greater. Pretty much after that all the O2 had gotten sucked out of the room and all Miller had left to rib on was the Clenis. He just didn’t have enough talent to turn it into anything memorable. And you don’t have to LOOK like or act like a candidate to make it work either. I still quote Chase doing Ford in the debates…”I was told there would be no math”. And who could forget Franken and the satellite dish on his head covering the elections. Miller just never figured out how those guys mixed comedy and politics so well and it slowly sent him over the bitter edge.
No freaking wonder he lost it trying to keep up with those guys. Face it, GOPer SNL presidential skits are astronomically funnier than DEM SNL skits. Amy Poehler got a lot of mileage out of impersonating Hillary but even Hillary thought they were more flattering than not. SNL actually seemed like its old self again when Tina Fey got hold of Palin. Somehow comedy just works better when you are making fun of grumpy old conservative fuddy-duddies or wingnut crazies. Miller hitched his horse to the rightwing wagon way back in the SNL days and can’t admit that there just isn’t as much gold making fun of liberals.
Chris Wolf
@Tom Factor:
Going forward, kindly refer to him as, “Ex-Comedian Dennis Miller”.
Zuzu's Petals
Well, on his recent Billo appearance, Jon Stewart was decent enough to talk about how smart he thought Miller was (starting at about 5:00). Granted, he confined his praise to his stand up skills in the old days, but still.
Miller in fact had nice things to say about Stewart after his Feb. appearance on Billo’s show. My guess is that Stewart is one of the few from the old days who is still willing to talk to him…as I recall he had him on TDS a few years back, and Miller desperately tried to rehab himself as something less than a wingnut.
rickstersherpa
@John Bird: I agree, I think the “right-wing talk business plan” is a large part of it. There is just so much money to make telling people that all their resentments are valid, that they are perfect, the victims of condescending elites, that all their problems are caused by someone else who either does not look like them or who lives in another country, and that they have no responsibility to the Nation’s good other than to mazimize their own income and wealth. But also, once you become a hack, you really start becoming stupider, a kind of self-induced moron who has turned off his or her cerebral cortex. After all, one just looks at the talking points Rove sends out for the day and you know what you will be saying. No need to think or research anymore. In fact thinking and questioning is counter-productive (as even Rove found out for a while until he back tracked).
Remember November
9-11, the burning of the Reichstagg for wingtard Amerikans.
History has acid reflux disease.
Lex
He soiled his pants on 9/11 and never wants to feel that way again.
The Other Chuck
Untreated alcoholism will do that to ya. Self-loathing and all that.
timb
@TomG: It’s one thing when the dead are foreigners and the “honored dead” (h/t Bogey) of the military. It’s another thing when the dead are rich bond traders, lawyers, and stock-brokers. No one ever mentions that a significant portion of the dead from 9/11 were upper middle class or upper class people. You know, the people who had rigged America to provide for them nice lives of leisure and comfort. They are not SUPPOSED to be struck down in the middle of life.
Some people never got over identifying with tragedy for the first time.
timb
@Mnemosyne: I think he still does his radio show, although not even I listen to that
Sasha
@timb:
Fascinating point.
goatchowder
Al Franken was asked about this. His answer was, basically, that Miller has always been a wingnut, in private.
I can only guess that Miller just wasn’t famous enough to be able to get away flaunting his idiocy in public, so he kept it to himself and his close friends. But now, he’s “out”.