‘Dennis Miller: Fake News, Real Jokes’ Review: Owning The Libs Is The Endgame, Babe

Dennis Miller and Dan Rather may not agree on anything politically as they did in the late 1980s, but they both still deliver on deep-cut metaphorical references.

You can find Rather musing online, or perhaps somewhere on your television dial this Election Night; Miller, meanwhile, just released a new hour comedy special, Dennis Miller: Fake News, Real Jokes everywhere BUT Netflix. It’s out today for rent or purchase from Comedy Dynamics on streaming platforms such as Amazon, Apple, Google Play, and more.

You can play your own Dennis Miller Jeopardy category, as you guess who he’s talking about as:

• “Crazier than Rasputin’s margin doodles”
• “Should host Creature Feature on Telemundo”
• “Bad Cut Bonnaroo”
• “Snowflake Jonestown”
• “Dances With Donors”

OK, you probably could figure out, knowing Miller has taken a hard right into conservative politics, that the latter description he saved for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, although at least his put-down of the outspoken Democrat isn’t as much of a slur as Donald Trump’s name for Warren.

But politics is a game to Miller. And owning the libs seems to be his endgame. Even though Miller does serve up mockery for some Republicans.

If nothing else, at least the 65-year-old former Weekend Update anchor at Saturday Night Live does put to rest the problematic conventional wisdom that conservatives are not or cannot funny. He is more than effective at making anyone laugh at the premise imagining selfies at the root of all of history’s major disasters, or the ridiculousness of therapy animals on airplanes, or the basic problems with commercial airline travel in 2018. “There aren’t even hijackings anymore,” Miller observes.

A former color commentator on Monday Night Football, he also wonders how football can remain worth watching. “They’ve gotten so neurotic about making the extremely violent game of football the extremely safe game of football,” he observes. And if you’re going to keep making a fuss over kneeling on the field, then Miller has a solution everyone can get behind.

But make no mistake.

Miller’s preaching to a politically conservative choir now.

He earns an applause break for wanting to talk race in Starbucks after the hullabaloo had quieted down, boos for mentioning Attorney General Jefferson Sessions as an unreliable ally of Trump’s, and for joking about marching in the streets against Trump as a full-time job.

At times, Miller wants to have it both ways, empathizing with transgender people while also still being able to make jokes about it.

At other times, he’s just another old man railing against the kids these days, whether it’s their preference for thumb typing over writing, or their sensitivity to political correctness. Miller jokes he could get a job as a “safe-space lifeguard. I jump in when the kids are drowning in their own bullshit,” before adding: “It’s official: names are now more dangerous than sticks or stones.”

Miller has some jokes that operate under the assumption that we have to choose whether to worry about terrorism or about global warming, but not both.

He also misreads the cultural significance in 2018 of Kanye West, applauding Ye for going all-in on Trump as important for bringing us all together.

And Miller uses his own journalism degree to throw all of the media under the bus.

Are these fair criticisms? Definitely more fair than those who compare Trump to Hitler, which prompts Miller to defend the president as someone who’s not responsible nor going to be responsible for a Holocaust. Miller jokes he would have voted for anyone in 2016 not named Hillary Clinton. “Donald Trump is far from perfect. I think he is a liar. I think he is crass sometimes. But I like the results I’m seeing in certain ways. I can’t do this silly game.”

In 2018, Miller chooses to see our political differences (which exist in his own home with his wife) as something akin to the great dress color debate of 2015. Some of us see black and blue; some see white and gold.

He’s happy that Trump wants to “knock down the Jenga tower of bullshit in D.C.,” regardless of what’s going up in its place.

But then again, comedians just point out the hilarity of our cultural Jenga towers. They don’t have to worry about what happens when it crashes, or about cleaning it up.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Dennis Miller: Fake News, Real Jokes on Steam