Audience relations: Bill Maher v. Rush Limbaugh
Reading yesterday's New York Times story on Jerry Seinfeld made me aware of how much practice it takes to be a comedian, to be likable and at the same time be true to yourself — which in the case of a lot of comedians means being self-centered and angry a lot of the time.
Seinfeld and Larry David are masters at this balancing act, but I can't recall anyone who's had to pull it off on live TV at a moment's notice. That's just what happened to Bill Maher during the Friday night telecast of his HBO talk show when certain audience members rose up to sabotage his show.
Before we look at that video, however, let's enjoy a classic moment from 1990. It's late at night in the very same building "Real Time" is now taped — CBS Television City — and Rush Limbaugh is hosting "The Midnight Hour," the show that was "The Pat Sajak Show" until Pat started getting lower ratings than Arsenio Hall. As you'll see, members of the audience begin to act up (indeed, the stunt was organized by ACT UP), and unless your name is Rush Limbaugh, the rest is nothing short of great television. (If it doesn't load, try this.):
My thanks to Panopticist. Notice how Limbaugh tries, over and over, to manage the situation. He has no clue how to do it — and it takes him what seems like forever to grasp the obvious: that he’s not GOING to manage the situation, nor will the skeleton crew from CBS be of help.
"Calm down!" he says, over and over. "I don't think this is proper ... what did you say?" Now he's distracted by another audience member. The crowd smells blood, and as more protestors pop up in the audience, all Rush can do is stand there, frozen. "I just wanted to have a little fun tonight," he whines. He starts to ramble, "I have already, I have already made a name for myself...A group of people try to silence — my friends ... I have attacked personally ideologically no one in this audience. All I did was show up. There is a movement now to shut me up."
Then, he goes to a break — and then comes back, valiantly, to run into the same wall again. The audience members act up again, and then Rush does something I wouldn't expect of a broadcaster. He shuts up and stares, like a study-hall teacher who's lost control of the 7th graders.
He only breaks his silence to look up at the audience member ranting at him. "Sir," he declares officiously, "I am not responsible for your behavior." And just like that two-thirds of the audience leaps to its feet and cheers wildly. They're cheering the audience member. And that's when it finally sinks in — almost the whole room is stocked with Rush's enemies.
So to another break, and since the show must go on, the room is cleared and Rush finishes before a sea of empty chairs. "I only regret that in the course of these events," he tells the home viewers, "I didn't get the chance to (have) you get to know me." And then he plays that sad, disingenuous hush-Rush song we have heard so many times since then, going on about being "silenced" and denied his right to speak. As he would do often from then on, Limbaugh tried to have it both ways: both as an aw-shucks "mere" comedian just trying to make America laugh, except when he wants to be taken seriously. Then, if anyone should dare heckle or harass him, or threaten his livelihood in any way — which any real comedian would tell you can be a daily occurrence — he wraps himself in the First Amendment. Speaking of 1990, what if NBC hadn't picked up "The Seinfeld Chronicles"? You think Jerry would be screaming about his right to free speech?
The only wise thing Rush says during his final soliloquy is when he tells the home audience that he hopes tonight's broadcast will "turn a lot of heads." Boy howdy, did it — Limbaugh spent years living down the embarrassment of that night.
Watching the video, you get some idea why Bill O'Reilly has a TV show and Rush doesn't — because Bill is able to control the chaos most nights, never overmatching himself, always controlling the microphone. It seems like even one hostile guest is enough to unsettle Limbaugh, whether the angry black woman who lit into him on "The Midnight Hour" or David Letterman, who would pants him three years later, again on CBS late night. When Rush had his own syndicated show, he filled the room with sycophants. The whole thing reeked of infomercial, and though it was intriguing for a while in that pre-Internet era, Rush seemed to wilt under the kleig lights and eventually retreated to the only heat he could actually handle, his own, blasting out from the radio speaker.
Any comparison of Rush's ineptitude on CBS late night with what happened Friday night on HBO, during the broadcast of "Real Time with Bill Maher," must be qualified a bit. The situation at "Real Time" was different because there were only a few plants in the audience, they were unpopular single-issue fringers (of the "Building Seven" 9/11 conspiracy kind), and the rest of the studio quickly solidified behind Bill.
But Maher did a lot to help his own cause. He has done a lot of standup, is used to dealing with hecklers, and has no fear about letting his bad boy side show. He's not afraid to be mean or look like a jerk. Somewhere inside of him, I think, he knows instinctively that this video will do his career as much good as "The Midnight Hour" did Rush harm:
