Just How Uncomfortable Does MTV's 'How's Your News?' Make You Feel?
In a few days, you'll be able to tune in to MTV and follow a group of mentally challenged individuals exploring America in a bus, and it has nothing to do with Road Rules.
The show is How's Your News?, which began as a small summer camp news show featuring reporters with physical and mental disabilities, and later became a documentary about the project, funded by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. A few years later, they sold the concept as a series for MTV, the South Park guys staying mostly hands-off and letting the HYN producers take over. The first of six episodes begins airing Sunday. Here's MTV's trailer:
Scored with the same upbeat guitar riffs that propel the rest of their dopey "real life" offerings, MTV seems to be marketing this as a good time with a cast of lovable, just-slightly-more-retarded-than-Jackass characters, who can always fall back on their "challenged" status to say something truly ridiculous, nonsensical, or downright rude to a celebrity. It's the stars' reactions that wind up being the most interesting thing about this, however—ultra-P.C. Ben Affleck paralyzed out of fear he might say the wrong thing, or Miley Cyrus seeming genuinely at ease and not the least bit tempted to distort her face into some kind of slanty-eyed Mongol mockery. And then there's Sarah Silverman, who not surprisingly most capitalizes upon the opportunity. Funny? Offensive? We're not sure. Vintage Silverman.