How's Your News?

MTV's new series How's Your News may seem like exploitative douchebag comedy at the expense of the disabled, but the show actually has a long history. it evolved from a documentary about a cross country road trip with several of How's Your News most outgoing reporters, which was winning combination of sweet, earnest, and utterly hilarious. 2004's follow up short, On the Campaign Trail, was even better, because mixing these intrepid reporters with politics is just so perfectly revealing.

Being a big fan of these earlier productions, I wish I could praise the series. However, they make some missteps while trying too hard to appeal to the tweener mass audience: loading the show with ironic humor, quick cuts, Jackass goofing, and celebrity interviews (comedians have the hardest time: Amy Sedaris and Sarah Silverman beeline for the irony and come off like total assholes, though SNL's Bill Hader steals the nice guy award, especially in this extended clip). It is still entertaining, and if I were still the teenaged me I would probably think it was the best show ever, but overall it lacks the charming innocence of the original HYN productions. Besides, the best segment of all ended up on the cutting room floor.

Before HYN, there was Kiss My TV Show, a 90s public access program out of Chicago. Produced by the Little City Foundation, this show has more of the over-protective non-profit do-gooder vibe and is therefore missing the winsome anarchy of HYN. But it does have all the hallmarks of great cable access. Despite being more supervised, Kiss My TV Show also motivates their mentally disabled television stars to engage in more dangerous habits than MTV would dare allow: like handling raw chicken and driving huge cargo vans.

Comments

[Hellbound Alleee]

Remember that "How's Your News?" originally was executive-produced by Matt and Trey!

[Joe]

In the Michael Azzerad Nivana bio, Kurt Cobain mentions his idea for starting starting a record label called "Exploitation Records", which would feature nothing but limited pressings of recordings by the mentally ill and disabled. His joke was that the "Exploitation" of the title wasn't of the subject of the recording... it was the person shelling out their good money for such an awful item.

This reminds me of that.

[Lindsay]

Ahh! He's wiping the lettuce all over the raw chicken board!

:(

[Jesse]

I disagree that this show has lost the appeal of the earlier films. It's definitely made efforts to fit in on mainstream television, but come on, this show is so much more out there than anything else on mtv, or anywhere else for that matter. Probably ten times the number of people have seen and heard of How's Your News? now because of this mtv series, and, as the brother of a man with down syndrome, I say that is a very very good thing. The show has continues to make me laugh and surprise me, and if young impressionable teens are really tuning into this I call it a small miracle.

[Ben]

Oh shit! I remember Kiss My Show...damn, talk about a flashback.