LAST "AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" COMIC STANDING

Wednesday Night Slaughter – GERRY DEE goes down on Last comic Standing.

Unbelievable.

Top Ten Comedic Themes of Stand-Up Artist
Lavell Crawford:

#10 – I’m fat.

#9 – I’m black.

#8 – I’m fat

#7 – I’m black.

#6 – I’m fat, black, and horny.

#5 –TBA

#4 – TBA

#3 – TBA

#2 – TBA

#1 – I’m stumped-- I think I’ll use the last joke I heard and do a lame spin-off of it.

By far the most original and funniest man in the competition, Gerry Dee was up against the unoriginal but moderately funny John Reep and the totally unfunny, often incomprehensible, blue-mouthed and boring Lavell Crawford, whose survival even into the Last Five category was inexplicable.

Inexplicably, Gerry Dee went down to shocking defeat.

I have watched maybe three or four episodes of Last Comic Standing, and it is the only “reality show” I have ever watched. (No, wait, I did watch the final episode of the first season of Survivor just to see what everyone was talking about. Yawn.)

I soon concluded that the results were probably fixed, because that was the only explanation for the continued success of Crawford, whose material was dumb, and increasingly badly delivered. He had to be the Affirmative Action Retention, but the talented guy (that's Gerry) was sure to win because he was the only person worth investing the $250K and the performance deal in. Would a network really throw their money away on a bomb act like Crawford, even if he got the popular vote?

Apparently the answer is “yes”—and now the only explanation for the success of Crawford is that the show ISN’T fixed—the producers are enslaved to the stupidity and gutter tastes of hoi polloi.

This is sad. However, surely the exposure brought by the LCS competition will translate into some big gigs and forward career motion for Gerry. So all is not for nought.

What's really sad is that Crawford represents the kind of Shuck'n'Jive, Steppin' Fetchit, watermelon-coon-shuffle black clown that most decent African-Americans hoped had been banished forever decades ago. That this low-rent stereotype still appeals to anybody, worse yet that it appeals to the audience for BET, is truly depressing.

Wait for it: the O.J. jury weighs in -- next week Lavell beats Reep.