Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

Has this show been showing in the US?

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 5

yes the show is funy as hell.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: LfuckinA
Posts: 3374

as i don't have the premium cable, i haven't seen it save for one show that my friend taped. it's not unlike the original limey (i have seen his videos) version except with american stuff...borat's guide to america. classic ali g for america.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: In a Blue, Blue State
Posts: 13080

Saturday, May 10, 2003

James Baker can't outfox Ali G

By MAUREEN DOWD
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

James Baker, the former secretary of state who helped make two Bushes president, is an extremely careful man.

A dignified diplomat with a deep fear of ridicule, Baker always keeps his suit jacket and his public utterances buttoned.

That is why I was dumbfounded to see him being interviewed on HBO by a hip-hop guy wearing fatigues, shades, a skullcap and bling-bling and talking like a British gangsta/Rasta rapper.

The young man was asking a skeptical and impatient Baker whether it was wise for Iraq and Iran to have such similar names.

YOUNG MAN: Isn't there a real danger that someone give a message over the radio to one of them fighter pilots, saying, 'Bomb Ira ... ' and the geezer doesn't heard it properly and bombs Iran instead of Iraq?

BAKER: No danger.

YOUNG MAN: How does you make countries do stuff you want?

BAKER: Well, the way you deal with countries on foreign policy issues ... is you deal with carrots and sticks.

YOUNG MAN: But what country is gonna want carrots, even if it's like a million tons of carrots that you're giving over there ...

BAKER: Well, carrots -- I'm not using the term literally. You might send foreign aid -- money, money.

YOUNG MAN: Well, money's better than carrots. Even if a country love carrots and that is, like, their favorite national food, if they get given them ...

BAKER: Well, don't get hung up on carrots. That's just a figure of speech.

YOUNG MAN: So would you ever send carrots? You know, is there any situation ...

BAKER: No, no.

YOUNG MAN: What about if there was a famine?

BAKER: Carrots, themselves? No.

The interview was a hilarious classic in the seldom seen subgenre of international relations humor.

Baker could outfox Al Gore but not Ali G.

The 31-year-old British satirist, whose new HBO show has already become a cult favorite among high school and college kids, came to the United States to do the same sort of interviews he did in England, putting unwitting VIPs on the spot.

With his white gangsta rapper wannabe, Sacha Baron Cohen, a brilliant graduate of Cambridge, sends up the vacuity of the culture in an era when putting people on TV who attract the right demographic is more important than putting people on TV who know what they're talking about.

But the interviews depend on the subject's not recognizing Ali G or even realizing that he's a comedian.

Ali G scammed Baker and others into granting interviews by sending them flattering letters on fancy stationery from United World Productions, inviting them to be part of a six-part series for Channel 4 on British TV aimed at explaining the U.S. Constitution to young people.

With his crew, Cohen went into Baker's conference room in a dark suit and put on his garish Ali G outfit before Baker came in.

As in England, Cohen has left a trail of irritated interviewees in his wacky wake.

Marlin Fitzwater had his doubts when Ali G showed up wearing a red jumpsuit and high-tops and asked inane questions. Like Baker, Fitzwater figured that Ali G was dressing for his "hippie" audience. But he ended the interview after Ali G asked him whether Hillary Clinton drank "from the fairy cup."

"I said, 'You're an idiot,' " Fitzwater recalled.

James Woolsey reacted good-naturedly when Ali G brought up the grassy knoll and asked, "Who shot J.R.?" Richard Thornburgh was patient when Ali G misinterpreted the meaning of hung juries. And Brent Scowcroft did not flinch when Ali G asked him, "Did they ever catch the people who sent Tampax through the mail?"

"It was anthrax," Scowcroft corrected pleasantly.

Ali G is wicked. And to him, that's a compliment.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

cool. I wasn;t sure if it was filmed for us, or for you. Seems it was prolly for both. I can understand him going to the US, everyone knows him here now so avoids him, hence the new characters like Borat.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

It's an all right show with occasional moments of cleverness. He does Borat here, too.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Little Rock.
Posts: 2598

I can't watch it, he's not funny, he's boring. stupid limeys always think they're so damn funny. like most stuff on HBO, it's crap.

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