If you’re a regular visitor to Jumped the Snark you’ll know that some of our greatest pleasure derives from those delightful occasions when Anderson Cooper rips a deluded, misguided, self-serving and/or reprehensible guest to pieces. He did it with former Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell and with Congressman Michelle Bachmann and with Amazon. So imagine our excitement when he welcomed Kirk Cameron as a guest last night. Finally, someone would nail Cameron for forcing the producers of Growing Pains to write former Playmate Julie McCullough off the show, leaving Mike Seaver at the altar, and leaving us stunned. Cooper could have authoritatively questioned Cameron about letting his Christian values dictate the course for the sitcom. He could have asked what’s the deal with Way of the Master. Or what was it like to work with a Canadian like Alan Thicke. Or even, on a serious note, he could have inquired about the late Andrew Koenig (let alone mention of this). Nope. All they did was talk about the dead blackbirds and fish in Arkansas. Boring (also, huh?)! That’s a big miss, Anderson, and we’ve come to expect more from you.
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Also, isn’t bringing Kirk Cameron on as an Armageddon expert just the kind of thing that Cooper would rail against, castigating its inherent absurdity? Perhaps he did that later in his “Keeping Them Honest” segment, putting himself on trial. If so, he’s won us back. If not, for shame, Anderson. For shame.
Sometime around the beginning of this year I pondered the similarities between Conan O’Brien and President Barack Obama (and teased an upcoming blog post on the subject via Twitter). With Conan’s new show premiering on TBS tonight, following the Republican tidal wave that swept into congress last week, and in doing so affixing a bold question mark onto Obama’s presidency, it seems like there’s no better time to finally revisit the parallel. This comparison is perhaps more relevant, and possibly more darkly prescient, than ever.
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