'The Beth Littleford Interview Special' is sincerely cynical

"The Barbara Walters Special" has become an annual Oscars-night
tradition, right up there with dinner at Spago and interrogations
with the Joan Rivers fashion police.
Tonight, however, the Walters show gets a delicious send-up with
"The Beth Littleford Interview Special," featuring the comedian and
correspondent for Comedy Central's "The Daily Show. " The program, a
compilation of previously shown segments, airs tonight, mere days
away from the real "Barbara Walters Special" on Monday.
In her 18 months on "The Daily Show," Littleford has made a
specialty out of these gauzy, patently insincere interviews. She
kills her guests with kindness, then chops them into hamburger at the
editing suite.
Thus, what must have seemed at the time an innocuous discussion
of gardening with ex-surgeon general Joycelyn Elders is jerked out of
context and massaged into an incredibly suggestive romp.
And imagine white supremacist David Duke's face after viewing the
edited result of his day with Littleford. The segment begins with her
introducing Duke as "a loving father and a semi-successful
politician - but mostly a racist. " It ends with Littleford
pleasantly asking the onetime Klansman about his plastic surgery and
how to get stains out of a white sheet.
In between, Duke is shown playing the piano for an artificially
bemused Littleford - an unkind reference to Richard Nixon's
appearance on "The Jack Paar Show."
In her interview with mega-beefcake Fabio, Littleford gets to ask
the ultimate Barbara Walters parody question: "You've said in the
press that you don't want to be seen as a piece of meat. Let's just
say for a second that you were a piece of meat. What kind of meat
would you be?"
Fabio, by the way, answers the question.
Also on tonight: "Diff'rent Strokes" stars Gary Coleman and
Todd Bridges.
In a telephone interview from Alberta, where she is filming
"Mystery, Alaska," a hockey movie produced by David E. Kelley,
Littleford admitted she can't do an interview if she isn't
lovey-dovey with her subject - even, or perhaps especially, when it's
someone like Duke.
"The people I interview, I'm always surprised by their
humanity," she said. "I bond with them."
At least until the taping is over.
"Yes, the editing tends to be a little crueler," Littleford
said. "But it's funny!"
At "The Daily Show" Littleford has become the most prominent
female talking head since the exit three months ago of co-creator and
head writer Lizz Winstead, who reportedly clashed with the show's
producer. The writing staff consists of "eight angry young men"
cranking out insults for the show's anchor, Craig Kilborn.
"It's a boys' club - but comedy is a boys' club," Littleford
said. "The humor that is mine is a little less searing, a little
more fun," she added, and over the phone lines you could almost hear
her creasing into a mock Barbara Walters smile.