Drunk with the Clicker: In The Flow

*fittedwearer's note: yes, I did bring this entire section back just for this.

So over the past few weeks watching various things on Fox (Family Guy and those other cartoons that look a lot like it) I've seen a few...hundred...thousand...commercials for this new sketch comedy show, "In The Flow", with  ex-Wildin' Out member Affion Crockett (if you don't know him, you don't need to). Before it's premiere airing last night, the network anointed him over and over as "the next biggest star in comedy"...as that's the spot I want, I decided to check out the competition. Honestly, the commercials didn't look that funny at all, and originally, I had planned to spend about 5 or 10 minutes watching it just for the old S and G. What followed was one of the most memorable hours of my life.

Not because the show was any good, mind you. I'll at least save you the suspense of a review and say "it fuckin' sucked", if that's what you've come for. What I'm going to share today is a loose account of my experience watching the show, in an effort to prove that man not only deserves no broadcast programming time whatsoever, he should be suspended from YouTube, have his Twitter account shut down, slapped in the Facebook, put under review by the NAACP and forced to go 3 rounds in an MMA match with a person who is actually funny, with the proceeds going to a charity for starving but talented comics. I can never recall laughing less at something that was supposed to be funny. Comedy in general is hit or miss...but when you're striking out every time you pick up a bat, you need to hit the showers. Case in point:

9:03 pm- After one last airing of the promo spot for the show (and a heated internal dialogue involving my anti-sheep sensibilities clashing with my desire to see things crash and burn), I decided to give the man 5 minutes of my time. I had a powerful suspicion I would not care for his comedy stylings at all, as they mostly consisted of doing his best imitation of Dave Chappelle's mildly retarded cousin, but had to confirm that it would be as bad as I thought going in. As it turned out, it was worse...

9:07 pm- Midway through a very uninspired Tiger Woods comeback skit involving Tigs playing miniature golf to cure his wayward game (and making a few awful sex jokes in the process...come on man, it's been damn near a year, all the good ones were already used), I realized that if this was what they were opening with, the tank wasn't too full. Just how bad would this get?

9:12 pm- A new low. Not content with not being funny, he decides to not be funny and pimp a struggling fellow network show at the same time. He asked the audience what the number 1 show on Fox was, and of course they all responded, in unison..."American Idol"! (Forget that that show has fallen off to the point where it's less a TV talent show and more the broadcast version of herpes, something that just keeps coming back no matter how much nobody wants it...Idol's #1!) This was a perfect opportunity for Crockett to unleash his next comedy innovation...discarded American Idol judge audition tapes! He used this segment in not one, but both episodes, implying that this will be a running segment for everyone who loved the show to enjoy every time they tune in...so both of y'all should be very pleased.

Of course, this was merely a thin premise used so he could bust out a few of his imitations...first up was "Manny Paquiao" (Everyone who doesn't watch boxing just went "huh?"...and for good reason) who showed up, spoke bad English, threw some shadow punches, and left, before later appearances from "Drake", "Chris Rock", and "Nicki Minaj", whose appearance was especially unimaginative. (I mean, "Nicki Minaj" is right below "the next person who will kick me in the nuts" on my "favorite people" list...if you can't make me laugh at a parody of her, you suck.) I couldn't help but think Fox execs had him wrap the skits around American Idol to remind people it still comes on.

9:15 pm- Still awaiting my first chuckle, I saw a real dud of a Twilight parody following a light brown skinned man (Crockett) named "HiLight", who recieves special treatment based on his fair skin tone...because that's a healthy thing to encourage and all. I didn't know where the skit was going when it started, and that's exactly where it ended up.

9:17 pm- A skit called "Wake-Up Call", where 2 hotel employees deride a patron who asked to be woken up at a specific time, using the line "Wake-Up Call!" as an opener (She didn't go for the obvious comeback "wake up call, you work behind the desk at a hotel making the same money as an immigrant day laborer!"). The jokes are harmless enough, I've heard better on a few schoolyards, but the real danger in this skit is in its potential to be quoted in real life with even less funny jokes. I can almost guarantee that the first person to use "wake up call" to preface an insult to me will need one, because I'm putting they ass to sleep.


9:23 pm- The funniest part of the hour, an Orbit commercial involving a man bobbing for apples and coming up with a man's thong in his mouth. How bout them apples, indeed.

9:27 pm- I decided I couldn't stomach any more of this on an empty one, and decided making myself some food was a better use of my time than anything on the show...so I went about it.

9:38 pm- Next up is "Afritar", an Avatar parody involving the jungle, marijuana, and a guest appearance from Snoop Dogg (the real one). Hilarious, if only to see Snoop in a blue jumpsuit and face paint looking like Negro Smurf. Okay, "hilarious" is strong...I smirked upon seeing Mr. Dogg and that was it...but compared to everything else, it was uproariously funny.

9:40 pm- During some terrible skit that I've repressed like a bad childhood memory, I found myself wondering how he got a TV show at all. The only possible explanations were blackmail or fellatio...and I still haven't decided which.

9:42 pm- The one that probably will have people talking about the show if it will be talked about, the Obama skit. It purported to show what our president was like during his time to himself and featured Crockett with extremely blackened lips that looked like he was trying to imply that Barack Obama uses a car cigarette lighter as ChapStick. Of course, the skit went to all the most obvious places, Barry O was depicted drinking malt liquor, smoking oversized joints, shooting dice, dancing around with his rough-looking homies, and generally cooning around. I think this skit set my people so far back, CPT will now be referred to as "Crockett Time". One thought ran across my mind as I continued to watch this painfully unfunny display of pandering self-hatred..."doesn't he get enough of this from white people?"

9:52 pm- After a skit about conscious rapper Common's new cold medicine, a joke that barely deserves a Facebook status, let alone 3 minutes of screen time, it was time for the grand finale, "Skinny Paint". This sketch was a monument to homoeroticism, following a group of young rappers who have ditched their skinny jeans (which are for girls anyway) in favor of simply painting their bottom half in fashion colors and flailing around with their legs spread. The network-mandated blurs weren't enough for a viewer not to be able to tell that they were actually naked from the waist down. It was less funny than powerfully uncomfortable to watch...I felt like my eyes had been raped by the time the show was over. When someone compares your comedic display to sexual assault, you generally didn't do too good a job.

I came away from the show with a sickening feeling that life was unfair. I knew then how talented amateur chefs feel when they see Rachael Ray's screechy, non-chopping ass making 500 grand an episode, how decent women might feel about bitches on reality TV or how Mexicans must feel about Carlos Mencia. I felt, firsthand, the totally justified feeling that someone is nowhere as good as me at what I do and is far more successful than me at it. In short, the comedy show left me feeling worse than I did before I watched it. By definition, that's all the review you should ever need. Fuck you, Affion Crockett.