Writers and the hosts keep the truly horrible at bay, but comedy is not based on nice. And sometimes it hurts.
By Craig Tomashoff
It would seem at first that late-night shows are
the
freshman dormitories of the TV world. After all, both
really
only come to life in the wee hours. They are relatively
independent of adult supervision. And in this sort of
loosely
structured environment, the boundaries of taste in both
can
get stretched a bit thin.
Copyright 1997 Los Angeles Times
"According to our writer staff, no, there are no
limits
to how far you can go," says Lizz Winstead, head writer
for
Comedy Central's comic news show, "The Daily Show."
"We'll
try to push through anything we can."
The truth is, though, that just as college freshmen
tend to mellow after a couple of bad hangovers, late-night
TV
talk shows have apparently come to understand that a
little
self-discipline is not such a bad thing if you want to
have a
future.
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