Jib Jab Sucks

Who decided that this is funny? I'll confess that I chuckled a little bit at Bush riding Slim Pickens' nuclear missile in the Woody Guthrie parody, but the new animation ("D.C. land") isn't even worth cracking a smile over. I mean, I get it---Cheney worked for Halliburton, McGreevey is gay, blah blah blah. Throw in some lame recycled Clinton material and apparently you can keep Jay Leno in stitches indefinitely.

The most repugnant thing about the Jib Jab brothers is the ad on their site: "Own [the cartoons] on DVD. $9.99. Own a piece of election history." And this is deadly serious, instant selling-out. Not, by the way, that their material was interesting or edgy to begin with---it's quite possible to be sexually suggestive without pushing any boundaries at all, and these guys have made a small craft out of doing so.

There will sadly be a surfeit of midwestern Hausfrauen who keep the Jibjab DVD stored safely next to their George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld commemorative silverware and "wanted terrorist" playing cards. I guess the joke is on them for spending money on a cartoon that includes an image of John Kerry in a ball-gag S&M outfit on his knees in front of Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, and Kofi Annan.

I hate to emulate the David Brooks style of armchair sociology, but phenomena like Jibjab do tend to remind me that I don't inhabit the same country as people who shop at Walmart, buy full-screen DVDs, and laugh at Leno monologues.