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1/2 Hour News Hour, The
SPECIAL: Fox News Channel, Sunday 2/18 at 10:00p (30 minutes)

1/2 Hour News Hour, The
Critic Score
Metascore: 12 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
2.8 out of 10
based on 11 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?
based on 367 votes
read user comments
rate this tv show

The right-wing answer to "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," the Fox News-produced spoof "1/2 Hour News Hour" gets a brief tryout on the Fox News Channel. (Yes, this time FNC is attempting to be funny intentionally.)

GENRE(S): Comedy, News & Talk
CREATED BY: Joel Surnow
FIRST AIR DATE: February 18, 2007

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

60
Miami Herald Glenn Garvin
If none of this quite rises to the level of Jon Stewart's intellectual hopscotch or Amy Poehler's inspired lunacy, it's nonetheless agreeably funny.
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30
The New York Times Alessandra Stanley
Sometimes the humor is so heavy-handed that it seems almost like self-parody.
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20
Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron
A look at the first episode suggests that, just as A.M. radio is the unassailable province of the right, TV might better be left to the left.
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10
Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm
The 1/2 Hour News Hour is slow torture all by itself.
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10
Variety Brian Lowry
As for Surnow, in a sense, he's added a program to his resume that neatly dovetails with "24" -- demonstrating that stiff, uninspired comedy isn't exactly torture; it's just not much fun.
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10
Boston Globe Joanna Weiss
In truth, there's nothing wrong with partisan humor, as long as it's actually funny. But here, even the less-political jokes are hopelessly obvious or old.
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10
Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan
The humor is so predictable and so stale that it fails to produce any laughs.
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0
Orlando Sentinel Hal Boedeker
"Weekend Update" on its worst night isn't this bad.
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0
Slate Troy Patterson
You couldn't skewer a cube of tofu with material this dull.
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0
The Onion A.V. Club Amelie Gillette
It's even worse than anyone imagined.
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0
The New Republic Sacha Zimmerman
It's hard not to keep staring perplexed, squinting a little, and uttering, "I don't get it" every few seconds.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this tv show is 2.8 (out of 10) based on 367 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mark L. gave it a0:
The ACLU joke was actually really funny, because guess what right-wingers? THE KKK is a right-wing group, and we lefties defended your right to march! Whoohoo! That was irony, which Faux is really good at presenting...sometimes as actual news sadly.

r C. gave it a10:
Loved the show...sorry it's off the air. The fact that the Libs don't get it, even makes it better. They don't get the Bible either.

Drew M gave it a10:
I am really pissed that they took it off the hour. My Sundays were actually lived waiting for this show. It was a great answer for us conservatives. Finally the left is getting bashed in a funny -- It was a great show and I will REALLY miss it..

Kevin K gave it a0:
Ideology without humor.

Jim gave it a0:
This show is about as funny as invading a country based on fabricated evidence of weapons of mass destruction. No matter how hard they try, they'll never match the comedy in using the exact same fabrications to invade another country, 5 years later. The creators of this show shouldn't be too upset that they lack humor, however. their reptilian single-minded approach to life and politics has allowed what was a marginal faction of ignorant, backwards country bumpkins to virtually dominate America's political process. Instead of trying to out lib the libs, the cons on Fox "News" should embrace their lack of culture and sophistication, perhaps with 30 minutes, every Sunday night, of dead air or perhaps paint drying.

James D gave it a10:
Some of the bits weren't funny, but overall the show was good. They had some good segments poking fun at the left, which of course the left hated.

Dan gave it a10:
Finally, someone makes fun of the left. The left probably doesn't get any of the jokes or is offended by the show.

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