Da Ali G Show

This has been showing in the U.K. for a long time and is very funny and a smart way of showing people in a true selves, Unfortunately the summary of the show is a little misleading.... the character is not meant to be a "Jamaican-British" but a person from a non-Jamaican background that thinks he is...It is not clear from this show that was shown around the world but the original shows shown in the U.K. it was, for e.g. he has a Jamaican D.J... on the his show each week, which he tries to talk to in Jamaican and has to refer to his "how to speak Jamaican" book because the D.J. cant understand him. I just felt I had to clear that up as it makes quite a big difference to how the character comes across...Funny as opposed to offensive. Overall great show with very much on-the-ball writers.

At this point in his career, Cohen has made a movie for all three of the characters who are frequent in this show, and I have to say that I prefer all of their appearances in Da Ali G Show to their full-length movies, although that may be because they work better in this setting. The show has no real determination to establish and maintain a followable plot-line, and it ends up as a collection of short segments from each character every episode. This allows Sascha Baron Cohen to remain calm, clear-headed, and to really fire on all cylinders with the sometimes improvised, always hilarious sketches.

The show is comprised mostly of interviews arranged for in the field, but Ali G does have studio interviews where he asks others to come to him and discuss controversial topics. The premise of the show is basically the humor behind a clash of culture, and we frequently see the characters in situations where they simply do not belong. Ali G and Borat both have a kind of ignorant edge, making them totally absorbed into the culture they're used to and at times lethal around people with different backgrounds. Bruno plays a lesser role in the show, and really isn't one of my favorite characters all together, but his goal is basically to surround himself with people unaccustomed to gay culture and to make them writhe in discomfort.

Borat's interview with a dating service and Ali G's forum on porno and abstinence are absolutely hysterical, and Ali G even has an interview terminated for "stupidity".

I think that this show, more than any of the movies displays the characters in their best light, and also shows more than anything how talented Sascha really is. There were times when viewing this show that I stopped laughing prematurely to acknowledge how truly impressed I was that he was able to keep a straight face while unleashing absolute nonsense based on real (albeit exaggerated) stereotypes.

Da Ali G show is an absolute masterpiece. Sacha Baron Cohen is perhaps one of the funniest people on the planet. He will certainly go down as a comic genius and legend. His skits are original, his writing is creative and his alter egos are just downright hilarious. I did not think that the new season would top last seasons unbelievable episodes, but it already has. The first two Borats have been out of this world and Ali G's interviews are just ridiculously funny. This is comedy that i have never seen before which is why i think that it is the best comedy on TV right now. This is coming from a big Curb your enthusiasm fan. I have a lot of respect for the big comedy series out right now such as the Simpsons, the family guy and arrested development, but i do not laugh harder than i do when i watch Ali G. I am in tears almost every episode. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it is the best show on television right now (since the Sopranos is currently in between seasons). If you haven't seen it, i strongly recommend you see it and if you don't think its funny or if you do not even chuckle the slightest bit at his antics, then you have absolutely zero sense of humor.

If you like comedy, then you'll love Da Ali G show. The show features a British-Jamaican b-boy that goes by the name of Ali G, A reporter from Kazakhstan whom just happens to be an over erratic nymphomaniac and a hard-hitting gay fashonista named Bruno(All portrayed by Sascha Baron Cohen). This show will make you laugh until you cry, and will make you smile in joy until you weep openly. Cohen is comic brilliance, he is excellent in his endless cynical and often aggressive wit. If you saw the movie Ali G Indahouse and you weren't exactly thrilled with what it had to offer and found Ali G repulsive, don't let that keep you from watching this show. There are three completely unique and utterly hilarious characters on this show. This show is quite amazing, I know I am starting to go on an endless rave but this show deserves every ounce of praise it gets. I am merely sour over the fact that there won't be a third season, or at least that's what it looks like from where we now stand... although I wouldn't be too sure about that!

Network: HBO; Genre: Sketch, Comedy, Improv; Content Rating: TV-MA (for graphic sexual dialog, profanity, scatological humor and graphic nudity); Available: DVD; Perspective: Cult Classic (star range: 1 - 5);

Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (2 seasons)

A comic performer going out into the real world, interacting with real people and annoying them to the breaking point for our amusement has been a staple of tacky infantile TV for as long as I can remember. Always-in-character British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen is several notches above the hacks you'd normally see in a sub-genre that has been co-opted by MTV and Comedy Central for so long. Under the guise of Ali G wanting to cure America of it's blues in the wake of "the attacks of 7/11", Cohen graces HBO with his presence and delivers a real treat for those like myself who have never seen his trio of characters on the original British incarnation of "Da Ali G Show", but only heard about them in television lore.

Cohen is a chameleon of a comic genius. He doesn't just do voices, he has taken the Phil Hendrie approach and created characters. Having embodied them for years he knows his characters through-and-through and while we don't get any expository background on them he has created such a world for each of them that those paying attention will be rewarded with running gags, quotable catch-phrases and details about their lives.

Our host for this anarchists' talk show is Ali G, a Brit drowning in Tommy Hilfiger and hip hop culture who genuinely believes that he is black. Hilariously, Ali G doesn't know anything about anything, can barely speak the English language through his constant mangled hip-hop slang, is always diverting the interviews to a personal problem of his own and has no appropriateness boundaries whatsoever. He uses a sex educator to try to prove a child isn't his, tries to make a drug deal with Pat Buchanan if he can ever pass the "coni" and drops an anecdote about "me Julie" to anybody. Interviews with James Lipton ("liking acting doesn't make you a queer"), Andy Rooney and Sam Donaldson are priceless. The mind boggles at how Cohen is able to get these. Watch as Ali G asks Buchanan if it is right to go to war "over BLTs" and Buchanan just rolls with it. Watch as he tries to explain political bias to Sam Donaldson. Even better, are the round-table discussions on his own graffiti-sprayed, fenced-off, chalk-outline-on-the-flood set, while "experts" sit around and just take it as Ali G asks the stupidest questions you can't possibly imagine and dodges the slightest reference to homosexuality.

Then, straight from another part of the globe is Kazakstan journalist Borat for the "Borat in U. S. and A" segment. Cohen makes Borat's segments a show within itself complete with subtitles and grainy hand-held 3rd world country video. Borat is a treasure, who crawls into the lives of his interviews because he comes off as such an innocent while at the same time espousing a hatred of Jews, gypsy's and a treatment of women as sex slaves that he supposedly learned in Kazakstan. Cohen has Borat speak with a Polish accent and plays with American's complete lack of knowledge of the country. He uses political correctness as a gun people turn on themselves, knowing that Americans are so afraid of being called racist or xenophobic that they will let Borat do just about anything to them. Borat walks around with a political candidate and, when a woman answers the door, asks if there is a voter in the house. Borat sings his own country song "Throw the Jew down the well" that catches fire in a crowded saloon. Borat goes on speed dating and tells the girl that if she cheats on him, he will "crush her". There is so much to Borat's, his 10 minute segments don't do him justice. The show is best viewed as a companion with Sacha Baron Cohen's blockbuster feature film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakstan" to get the full scope of Cohen's vision.

Bruno is the least developed of the 3. A fashion reporter for Australian gay TV, it appears that Cohen loves doing the accent and doing the worm on the catwalk but can't figure out what he is satirizing here. The fashion industry? Who cares? A phony celebrity-obsessed culture? That's more like it. In season 1, Cohen keeps Bruno caged inside fashion show segments. It isn't until season 2 when he lets Bruno out that the character finds itself. When Cohen casts Bruno as a fish-out-of-water interviewing wrestlers at Datona beach or interviewing a man who runs a rehabilitation center for homosexuals (Bruno's funniest interview), the show hits a Phil Hendrie/Doug Danger note that really works for it and Bruno holds up the mirror to repressed homophobia and the contrived nature of reality shows and fashion critique.

My biggest problem with "Da Ali G Show" is that it is just too short. Way to short. 12 episodes left me screaming for more. As heated as some of the interviews get, Cohen's larger joke is usually on his character. His ability to hold up the funhouse mirror and make fun of the potential stupidity of youth hip-hop culture and the potential xenophobia in areas of America not familiar with "Ali G" from the inside out is a beautiful thing. In America, the only comparison we have to it is Mike Judge who has been subversively making teenagers and office drones laugh at themselves for years. Sacha Baron Cohen is even better. He's more on the edge, more into Jonathan Swift satirical territory and "Ali G" is screamingly, obscenely funny cult classic for it.

* * * * / 5