Bill Maher spent the bulk of his “New Rules” segment on Friday’s episode of “Real Time” talking about a serious (ish) issue he’s interested in — in this case, an appeal for some kind of nuanced patriotism — and we’ll get to that in a minute. But before the long final segment, he made a couple of jokes we found somewhat amusing, so we’re going to focus on that.
Normally, “New Rules” has several jokes before Maher gets to the main lecture and that was the case on the latest episode. For instance, early on he joked that the premise of the “Candyman” horror films doesn’t make any sense unless people in the movies are doing what they do for political reasons.
“It’s time to admit that Candyman has the worst premise of any horror movie ever. And that premise is if you say his name five times, Candyman appears and kills you. solution? Don’t say his name five times. But everyone does. Why? To own the libs? Even Candyman is going, ‘I’m way busier than I thought I’d be,” Maher joked.
A little bit later, he made a couple of jokes about hurricane Henri. first saying “New rule: The long island couple whose wedding was derailed by Hurricane Henri must not be so devastated. Maybe it’s a sign that this was not meant to be. Because marriage is a lot like a hurricane — at the beginning you get blown a lot, but in the end you’ll lose your house.”
“Ralph, I’m so sorry,” Maher added, addressing one of his panel guests, right wing fundamentalist lobbyist Ralph Reed. “I only do it because I know you can’t hear it anywhere else. I know you secretly love the dirty stuff so I do it when you’re here for you.”
This was followed by another joke: “Don’t make your hurricane projection map look like a vagina. I know you’ve got weather to report. But when you do it this way, Men have trouble finding Boston.” Get it? Get it?
That’s when Maher got to the main point, which was basically an argument against what he sees as unfair hatred for America by segments of the country, particularly among the left. During the rant, Maher argued that “a little perspective” was needed in order to understand that as bad as things look, compared to certain other places it’s not even close.
“Have a little perspective about the stuff we howl about here. I’m sorry your professor said something you didn’t like. That won’t be a problem with the Taliban because you’re not allowed to go to school. In Saudi Arabia, grown women can be jailed for doing the kind of things we think of as routine without the permission of a male guardian. China rounds you up if you’re the wrong religion and puts you in camps,” Maher said at one point.
“More children in Burkina Faso work than are in school. Only 5% of Burundians have electricity. The homicide rate in Honduras is eight times what it is here. The inflation rate in Venezuela is 2,719%. The Philippines in the last five years has put to death 27,000 low level drug dealers — my old job. In North Korea, people starve to death. The only people who starve here are doing it for a role,” he added. Ok then.
It’s familiar territory and we won’t just type out the whole thing, but if you must watch it, check out the video at the top of the page right now.