Foist! Haha!!

I would be offended by this sketch if I were really Italian, but I'm a fake Italian -- adopted -- so all it did was make me hungry. Pass the breadsticks!

The right's just pissed off because they can't even create a decent comedy show with political satire on their own Fox News Channel (besides the usual unintentional humor ).

As a guinea, I'm offended as shit. Where's a culture warrior when you need one.

I'm Italian and I thought it was a riot, especially the misuse of the Language (ciao bella). Funny stuff.
Molto divertente

Franco Harris would howl!

I am a Sicilian and remember the names they called us as immigrants.

Then we took over New York.

sassafra @ 12:

people are too damned touchy nowadays.
i'd hate to be a member of the only race on the planet that wasn't funny.

You mean Norwegians?

Everyone can laugh at their own.
It's great to look in the mirror and bust out laughing.

Kosher anyone.
Chicken and collard greens anyone?
Weinersnitzle ?

bring it on.

sassafra @ 12:

people are too damned touchy nowadays.
i'd hate to be a member of the only race on the planet that wasn't funny.

Drive by Christians aren't touchy. They think they have a divine right to not be dissed or they kill you and banish you to HELL because they are superior. And they drive PT Cruisers.

And so the lesson here, is, complain! If the right didn't have a Billion Blogs for Bitching®, they wouldn't be so effective.

Seems to me that a lot of people take themselves much too seriously these days. Are liberals the only ones who can laugh? Sure, there are some lines you shouldn't cross in jokes but come on, we know where the lines are and we don't go there. These days if you can find anything funny, I think you should laugh like hell because those times are few and far between.

DaveTheAngryRhodeIslander @ 24:

It was not very funny to me. I'm half-Italian and I like to make fun of people too, but I'm tired of these unimaginative stereotypes. Not all Italians are crude, loud buffoons. Only the ones from New Jersey ;)

LOL ... and upstate NY ...

The Sons of Italy have the Committee for Social Justice which responds to things such as this. If there were other, less degrading images of Italians in this country, I wouldn't mind. But this is the cultural perception of Italians. A student of mine told that that when he went to South Carolina and told people there he was an Italian, from Jersey no less, they assumed his family was in the mob. THAT'S the problem. And, yes, I am Italian. And very proud of it.

That clip is offensive because of just how completely unfunny it is. Woo hoo!!!! Olive Garden isn't authentic!! What comedic genius!!!

Dave Chapelle gets it......MadTV doesn't even come close to getting it.

#27 Seriously? Cultural perception? It's a comedy sketch show. And like another poster pointed out, not a particularly clever one.

Y.E.S. @30;

Ehh, I stand corrected.. Fact is I don't eat at Olive Garden either but was just riffing on the fact that while all the other food entries was gettin negative play in the skit, noone in the spot was ragging on the bread itself... I agree, if we're really seriously talking about food or bread in particular, the neighborhood restaurants and bakeries are definitely where it's at.. regardless of what particular ethnic cusine one favors....yum, yum, bon apitit folks......JD

"Not all Italians are crude, loud buffoons".

That's true. Leastwise my cousin told me she actually met one a few years ago.

Jack Damage @ 33:

Y.E.S. @30;

Ehh, I stand corrected.. Fact is I don't eat at Olive Garden either but was just riffing on the fact that while all the other food entries was gettin negative play in the skit, noone in the spot was ragging on the bread itself... I agree, if we're really seriously talking about food or bread in particular, the neighborhood restaurants and bakeries are definitely where it's at.. regardless of what particular ethnic cusine one favors....yum, yum, bon apitit folks......JD

I've only been to olive garden once. I was in San Antonio on business a few years ago and my hosts took me there assuming that I'd want Italian food. Of course I was gracious in the face of adversity but asked them to pick out their favorite Texas barbecue joint so I could reciprocate with dinner the next night. I don't remember the name of the place we went to but boy that was some good eats.

Well, we can't call this guy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,2205649,00.html

Hey, John, we have an 'Italian League'.

It's called 'Our Thing'.

I thought it very funny. Not super-clever, or anywhere close to MADtv's best efforts, but still funny and to the point. It really shows up that terrible NBC SNL skit with Obama. Yes, it is on FOX so what? Where else are those talented comedians going to get work? CSPAN?

Italians, Sicilians, and both-Americans I hope would find this funny and true as well. Really... it is a wonderful culture especially from the perspective of food; don't let corporate America whore it out and bland-ize it. Look at what they did to the Irish. Now all that is promoted commercially about the culture (aside from negative stereotypes) is leprechauns, green beer, and riverdance. Yikes. Honestly, if one day these corporate jerks put Colonel Sanders in blackface and pimp KFC as "soul food" I probably won't be all that surprised.

I've been to an Olive Garden once, and a Macaroni Grill once (stupid groupthink). But I've been to little indie Italian owned and run restaurants (when in Seattle... none here :( ) dozens of times. Well worth it, usually cheaper food, and ALWAYS far better food.

And 100% less offensive pimping out of someone else's culture. It's always a choice to support or not support these things. Take the time to do it right. Or alternately, if non-Italian people must go out to eat somewhere to pretend act out Italian stereotypes, at least go to a real Italian restaurant. (Where someone can tell you what an idiot you are.)

Good job MADtv...

I know those people! I laughed.
I thought it was a pretty good satire of my relatives on the Italian side of the family... of course they would sooner starve than eat at the Olive Garden.

or even taking our own ability not to be offended (when a joke/slur/stereotype is aimed at us) as evidence that nobody ought to be.

Yellow Elephant Safari @ 40:

miss_kitty @ 36:

Yellow Elephant Safari @ 15:

sassafra @ 12:

You mean Norwegians?

HOW DARE YOU!!!!!111!!!1

:P

I did know a Norwegian Lutheran minister who was a pretty funny guy though.

He had a plaque on his desk that said:

Lutefisk. The piece of cod that passeth all understanding.

bingo! lute fisk is the winner!. white, pale, fish jellied by means of lye, and rot, onna plate staring at you.
any race that can eat that stuff deserves to be pointed at and ridiculed.
the norwegians are ok! funny peeps.
plus they also have lena nystrom from aqua who sounds like she's been huffing helium for decades.

Hunh. To me, "MadTV" is disgusting, and worst of all, not funny. Watching it is like crawling around in a sewer.

nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez @ 46:

i didnt watch it. but re: the post's logic. we don't need to be uptight all the time. but we should ware the thin line between saying "just relax when your ethnicity is attacked" and outright denigrating someone's personal feelings and experience and being ignorant of our own biases toward not hearing the offensiveness in a statement not aimed at yourself.

Well you should watch the clip then.

It doesn't mock "Italian-Americans", it mocks how they are portrayed -- used -- in corporate media to sell fake, crappy mock-"Italian" products. Possibly in an offensive manner.

Olive Garden is Italian like "Corinthean Leather" is Greek. Have you ever seen those Olive Garden commercials? That is what MADtv is gently pointing to here and saying, "See? Don't you think these commercials are a little over the top?" But of course, it is mostly about the funny, and doing comedy. It just happens to work as a valid social critique (but then, doesn't good comedy usually?).

I could see being offended at Olive Garden, but I don't really get being offended at MADtv for pointing it out to you an exaggerated commercial. Dunno... "frozen chicken sticks re-heated on cheap overcooked pasta smothered with catsup". Yep. That is exactly the dish I had while there... nasty. And WAY expensive.

I've seen as much liberal wailing and caterwalling as I have conservative bitching and bemoaning over "innapropriate humor."

Imagine O Reilly cracking wise (not on his show, just in public and it was overheard or recorded) in the manner of Sarah Silverman (that dirty Jew). The clip would be on every liberal blog and Olbermann too. The outrage would fill us all with glee.

O Reilly is such an ass.

BTW I stole the "dirty Jew" line from Sarah... so it's OK.

Or is it?

"Oh the gift the giver gee us, to see ourselves as other's see us."

( My mom's favorite Irish line.) God rest her soul.

I like Mad TV. Humor is supposed to offend people.
No crying Italian Americans, you're freakin' WHITE people in the USA for cryin' out loud.
I'm Irish. Same thing.

Give me racist jokes, but please DUMP the right wing assholes.

--Liberal for racist jokes

DickCheneyShotMeInTheFace @ 52:

DaveTheAngryRhodeIslander @ 24:

Not all Italians are crude, loud buffoons. Only the ones from New Jersey ;)

*LOL* And Philadelphia.

Being Eye-talian and from Philadelphia, I'm highly offended. In fact, I'm-a so mad, I threw my meatballs at the wall!

A-phooey!

I'm glad you posted this John.

I used to work at the Olive Garden and this is much more a rip on that restaurant than it is on Italians. the skit was very clever in the way they portrayed their food. Sucky and as far from Italian food and culinary discipline as you can get.

Olive garden=Red Lobster=TGIF=Chevy's=Marie Calendars, Expensive TV dinners with tax and a tip served by completely fake people, under a fake premise (ie "Italian" restaurant.)

FOX is State Sponsored TV @ 14:

MAD is a FOX program.
I don't watch it.

So is the Simpsons. Are you saying the writers on that show are in league with Fox & Friends?

Don't be such a mezzafanuch,...

John jokes, "I think we need an “Italian League.”

This reminds me of a story my husband's old boss says happened, like, 15-20 years ago. They worked at an ad agency that created a series of ads for a pizza chain restaurant, and the ads featured an Italian grandmother who was very, uh, feisty. They were comedy spots, but some old Italian men who called themselves something to the effect of "The Italian Anti-Defamation League" demanded a meeting with the ad agency boss, and in the meeting they made it very clear that they did not appreciate the stereotypical humor.

Then the leader of the group pulled aside his suit jacket, revealing a gun, and asked menacingly, "Understood?"

Apparently they were as irony-deficient as they were humor-deficient. ;)

Whaddya talkin' about? My high school, and town was about 50% Italian, and so were my friends. Looked pretty real to me. ;) [Yes-- I was a mange cake (sp?)]

I am 69 and so can you.

Too much garlic? #70 has obviously never been to an authentic Italian restaurant.
Back to the clip: the stereotypes were out in full force. For the same reason, I never watched "The Sopranos" either. As an FBI (full-blooded Italian), I have attended plenty of Italian dinners but never with the sort of loutish, promiscuous and uncaring people exaggerated and satirized in the clip. I do believe, though, that the routine was more negative regarding Olive Garden than the ethnic group.

I'm italian too, and I think it's hilarious. Especially when the grandfather starts singing opera- how many ethnic stereotypes can you fit in to one sketch, and the send-up of the decidedly Anti-Italian menu at Olive Garden is the best!

Olive Garden?......italian?, give me a f....ing break!!!, if that is italian I am russian.

Great video, gotta love the italian americans despite stereotypes, at least they are able to laugh at themselves like sane people do.

Alla salute!!!

As an NBI (native-born Italian) I can qualify what I'm saying... of course , garlic is used in Italian cooking, but not to excess like in the so-called "authentic" restaurants found in the States. Excessive (note the adjective) garlic in Italian cooking is an American thing - like garlic bread, which is not served in Italy.