It'll probably be a long time before Bill Maher is welcome in Australia. The comic is making headlines for dressing up for Halloween as the dead Crocodile Hunter, complete with stingray barb and bloody shirt. In its story about Maher's tasteless costume, the Sydney Morning Herald makes it sound like one-in-two Americans is going as dead Steve Irwin this Halloween. Is it insensitive? You betcha. Funny? Eh. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but more roll-your-eyes-and-groan funny. And it's not nearly as funny as South Park's reference to Irwin's death last week, which I thought was surprisingly tasteful and hilarious at the same time.
So... is the costume funny or not?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
10-31-2006 @ 6:45PM
midwich said...
No.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:01PM
Karen said...
No.
Plus, it's a blatant rip-off of South Park. So it's doubly tacky.
But it's one thing for a TV show to indicate that one of Hell's Damned would do such a thing. It's completely another for a regular citizen to do so. I can only imagine what Irwin's family must feel when they look at this photo.
Beyond tasteless.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:04PM
Fred said...
No. Even if it wasn't in poor taste, even if it wasn't much too soon, where's the clever or funny part about it? More than tasteless, to me it just seems dumb.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:20PM
HG said...
Not funny. He tries too hard.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:23PM
Sam Goldman said...
I had mentioned this in an earlier post: I found it funny not because of his costume but because he looks so stinking drunk.
It does not help (or hurt, depending on how you look at it) that I have absolutely no sense of tact and don't believe there is such a thing as "too soon."
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10-31-2006 @ 7:23PM
Justin said...
A cartoon that's infamous for being specialists in poor taste is one thing. It's something else when it's being lampooned by a man who tries to come across as politically relevant. He lost some points with me, but he could regain some respect by starting to use some Proactiv. Dude, fix your FACE.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:27PM
beanspants1 said...
he was funny in "amazon women of the avocacdo jungle".
since then, not so much.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:34PM
susan schmidt said...
Bill Maher is a mess! He is desperate for a laugh, obviously. Not funny, not worth even a grin.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:36PM
BGDC said...
Not funny because others are doing it already. It's old hat by now.
Not sure what the big deal is, though. Irwin was a clown and he died doing something silly and entertaining. Whoopty freaking do.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:41PM
SJ said...
I like his show but his smug attitude pisses me off sometimes.
And this is not funny. And damn he looks awful.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:42PM
Jason said...
Well it's nice to see Bill hasn't lost his disrespect for the dead.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:47PM
ooda said...
Being Australian, I should be insulted, but I find this hilarious. The hair-piece is what tops the whole thing off for me. That said, I do love Bill Maher, so I am biased in that regard.
What I find insulting is how the family has handled the situation.
1 - Whoring out the daughter for the Nick Awards right after the death.
2 - Her doing the 20/20 (I think) interview right after.
3 - When he was alive, he was obviously making a fool of himself, and doing it so as to get the attention of others. Now that he's dead, the family wants to be treated like they're normal people. They put themselves in this situation, and the stuff they're doing, like I outlined above, is just compounding it.
In short, yeah, I think it's hilarious. I can't comment on South Park though, as it has been a while since I've watched that show.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:49PM
Annette said...
Bill is not funny most of the time, he just gets lucky the rest.(of the time) I do catch his show on HBO and even it has trouble being funny nowadays.
Oh Bill, oh Bill, where have you gone?
Your clone is not funny. Let's hope that after the elections you'll find your funny bone again.
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10-31-2006 @ 7:50PM
ooda said...
And on a side note, I would have thought Bill laughing after every joke he tells would be more disrespectful than this.
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10-31-2006 @ 9:46PM
brian said...
i guess it's just too soon.. its too fresh.. next year maybe
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10-31-2006 @ 8:37PM
Jeff said...
What's funnier is everyones reaction -- righteously declaring how unfunny the costume was -- which I would imagine is exactly what Bill Maher was hoping would happen.
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10-31-2006 @ 9:04PM
MacGuffin said...
Funny.
Tasteless.
But Very Funny.
P.S. I wish I thought of this.
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10-31-2006 @ 11:27PM
Adam said...
As an Australian: fucking hilarious.
But then as an australian my opinion of irwin himself is lower than low.
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10-31-2006 @ 11:22PM
Sy said...
Whats so funny about dressing up as a dead guy? Its childish perhaps ...attention getting yes. Funny? NO.
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11-01-2006 @ 12:42AM
MosquitoControl said...
1) It is not a South Park ripoff. Everyone knew this would be a costume before the South Park aired.
2) 1 in 2 Americans may have done this. It was everywhere.
3) There is no such thing as "too soon," for any tragedy unless it's around those directly effected. Immediately after his death jokes about his death were funny. Maybe not with anyone that knew him in the room, but c'mon, your average Halloween party didn't send an invite to his widow.
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