CNN Drove a Stake Into New Year’s Heart

In order of the worst things to ever happen to New Year’s Eve, are, (1) the Garry Marshall movie named after the holiday, (2) CNN, and (3) whatever you drank that made you sleep with your buddy’s ugly sister. CNN might’ve jumped to the front of the line with their intro to 2018 edition. 

Quick, think of a hilarious gay comedy duo, where one guy laughs nervously before telling a celebrity story and the other dude is literally blue in the face wishing he were back home in his monogrammed silk pajamas drinking something sophisticated. Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen had the easy rapport of Paul Sheldon and Annie Wilkes in Misery. Somebody sure looked like the hostage and the other the fanboy loon.

Throwing to various edgy ports of call around the nation was no saving grace from the joyless Times Square perch. It’s odd that a self-described serious news outlet would double as a cheap Vegas variety act for a live holiday event. Fox News did it too, if merely to prove my point. CNN’s throws to people smoking pot in Denver, cause don’t you know, weed is legal in Colorado, or to the tranny water nymph parade in Key West, jumped the world’s most cloying shark, and then some. Don Lemon was sober in New Orleans. That’s a switch. Also, boring. Bring out the ear gauging tools or some shit.

At one point they asked Dave Chappelle to say something super serious about the state of the world. If only because somebody in production had a checklist of the things people would least like to see while drinking on New Year’s Eve. They hit the mark when John Mayer repeated exactly what Chappelle had just said, but more white and far less baked. So entirely worse. No wonder Anderson Cooper looked so deathly stiff. This was Scrooge being visited by the alternative lifestyle ghosts of Christmas right the fuck now.

You start with the baseline of people who waited eighteen hours in frigid temperatures to see if Kathy Griffin might murder-suicide Cooper before CNN could cut to commercial. That might’ve saved the evening. As it was, Griffin must’ve been sitting home thinking, I’m a talentless shrill hack, but I ain’t this bad. Happy New Year.