The man has been nominated a staggering 21 times for his late night talk shows and stand-up comedy specials and never won a single award, as many as soap star Suan Lucci's 21 (although she finally did snag one).
That number will probably keep growing since his show faces some stiff competition for a little gold statue. And despite my (and your) personal approvals and disagreements with the man's various opinions and philosophies, it's time he got something for his work.
Oh boy, I can already hear the fast and furious fingers of fury from the peanut gallery typing out angry, fiery, spittle flinging comments as I write this. Before you take up the torches and the pitchforks, hear me out.
One of my pet peeves is when someone says that they're too young to remember something that happened in history. As if they couldn't have read about it somewhere. I thought of that after seeing this clip from Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher. It's Democratic strategist Paul Begala making a joke about Meghan McCain's comment that she wasn't born when Reagan was president so she wouldn't know what he's talking about.
Now, I'm not a big fan of Begala, but he does have point (though he could have used a more accessible example than the French Revolution, it would have been more pointed). I can't decide if McCain was being serious or if she was making a joke about Begala's age or if it's part of the "dumb blonde" joke she makes later in the clip. You decide.
A lot of dissecting and exploratory surgery has been done on the jokes that David Letterman made about the Palin family. Even after Dave apologized and Palin accepted, people still want to perform a comedy autopsy to figure out what Dave's intent was and why Palin was so vocal in her reaction to it.
The problem is it's an unnecessary surgery and it fails to attack the root of the problem while the real cancer spreads like a California wildfire. E.B. White once said about such procedures that, "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." The only reason this frog hasn't died is because someone wants to keep it alive and no one has dared to touch the heart.
This is the side I will debate in the never-ending Letterman vs. Palin "Joke-gate" controversy while our very own John Scott Lewinski will offer a rebuttal later in the day that a public figure's children should always be off-limits.
Bill Maher recently brought up the tour-de-frump that is the Susan Boyle phenomenon on his HBO Real Time show, along with an interesting observation on her runaway success.
Now I'm not a regular watcher of these flashy Gong Show remakes like American Idol, America's Got Talent or America's Got Nothing Better To Do Than Watch This Crap, so maybe my opinion doesn't count in the court of reality show watchers. It seems to me that every few years or so, a phenomenon will bust out of one of these shows for reasons other than their ability to do whatever it is they do on these shows. These shows feed on humiliation like great white schadenfreude sharks.
Enter Mrs. Boyle, the "lovely Scottish troll with the voice of an angel," as Maher put it. But Maher feels her success is due to the unconscious guilt everyone secretly feels from watching these bottom-feeding talent shows.
I know I've been asking this question a lot, but what the hell is going on here? Have we entered the bizarro world? Is up now down? Has black become white? Did Dr. Sanja Gupta accept Barack Obama's offer to be the next U.S. surgeon general after Dr. Pepper turned him down?
Last week, we reported on Apple's refusal to include a new South Park iPhone app. The white hot anger could be felt from coast to coast. We here at TV Squad were worried that the uproar it could have caused could have landed us in "Enemy Combatant Land" for disturbing the peace and inciting a riot, which technically would be Apple's fault.
Then an interesting little story popped into my view that seemed to contradict the claims Apple had made and as always, television helped show me the way.
At 8, CBS has another Price Is Right Million Dollar Spectacular.
NBC has a new Amnesia at 8, then a new, two hour Dateline.
There's a new Smackdown! on The CW at 8.
PBS has a new NOW at 8, followed by new episodes of Washington Week and Bill Moyers Journal.
At 9, ABC has two new episodes of 20/20.
Lifetime has a new Your Mama Don't Dance at 9.
Also at 9: VH-1 has a new Best Week Ever, then a new Free Radio.
At 9:30, HBO has a new In Treatment.
At 10, E! has a new episode of The Soup.
Sci-Fi has a new Stargate Atlantis at 10.
At 10:30, TCM has Three Days of the Condor.
At 11, HBO has a new Real Time with Bill Maher, with guests Christopher Hitchens, Harry Shearer, and former Under-Secretary-General of the UN Shashi Tharoor.
In recent weeks, TV Squad has reported that HBO has made episodes of their new drama series In Treatment available for free viewing online. Now, HBO has taken another step in expanding its brand and making some of their top shows available on the web. The cable channel has just inked a deal with YouTube to create an HBO channel online. The HBO/YouTube site is up and running -- you can click over there today and start catching up on HBO series.
The initial line up is impressive, starting with the Gabriel Byrne drama In Treatment. You can also catch up with Entourage episodes, which are always fun. There are more laughs with Flight of the Conchords, Extras, Stand Up Comedy, Def Comedy Jam, and Real Time With Bill Maher. On the dramatic front, there's The Wire. In addition, you can watch episodes of the award-winning magazine show Real Sports, as well as the Latino documentary series Habla y Habla.
HBO's Real Time with Bill Maherreturns for a new season this week, and Maher is going to return without writers, like most of the late night talk shows (except Letterman and Ferguson).
Two big segments of the show, Maher's opening monologue and his show-closing "New Rules" segment will be gone when the show returns. That's too bad, since "New Rules" is usually one of the best parts of the show (the monologue isn't long enough to really miss). Maher will go into the audience to talk to people. He should fare better than all of the other late night shows, since 95% of each episode is made up of a roundtable discussion with guests and perhaps a satellite interview. Though I wonder if some celebs and politicians will decline to appear on the show?
All this talk of Emmy snubs has overshadowed the biggest snub, numerically speaking: Real Time host and professional Ann Coulter wrangler Bill Maher. 
A lot of dissecting and exploratory surgery has been done on the jokes that David Letterman made about the Palin family. Even after 
At 8, FOX has a new Don't Forget The Lyrics.
Bill Maher recently brought up the tour-de-frump that is the Susan Boyle phenomenon on his HBO Real Time show, along with an interesting observation on her runaway success. 
CBS has March Madness all night.
I know I've been asking this question a lot, but what the hell is going on here? Have we entered the bizarro world? Is up now down? Has black become white? Did Dr. Sanja Gupta accept Barack Obama's offer to be the next U.S. surgeon general after Dr. Pepper turned him down?
At 8, CBS has another Price Is Right Million Dollar Spectacular. 
In recent weeks, TV Squad has reported that 
At 8, CBS has a new Ghost Whisperer, followed by new episodes of Moonlight and Numb3rs. 
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