Did you think Ricky Gervais was mean in his delivery on the recent Golden Globe Awards?  Trust me, Gervais was a Jonas Brother compared to the Onion News Network.

Having been a long-time fan of The Onion, I hoped for the best and was amply rewarded with the Onion's long-standing tradition of absurd and incisive satire deftly in play here.

Clearly aiming to lampoon CNN, MSNBC and FOXNews and their continuing race downward to journalistic vacuousness and stunning reportage stupidity, ONN puts big news on trial, finds them guilty and then executes them with the mercy of a ravenous praying mantid.

The anchor in charge of  "The Fact Zone," Brooke Alvarez, is played to blond-coiffed perfection by Suzanne Sena who was actually a former Fox News Channel anchor.  Her deliberate condescension and constant dismissal of everything on which she is reporting on merges with her pitch-perfect, self-absorbed delivery.  

She flatout looks, dresses and sounds like one of these beauty-queen anchors and that makes the ridiculousness of what's she saying even more insanely funny.

ONN doesn't hit (yet) specific political targets like John Stewart and Steven Colbert do on their satirical shows but rather keeps to generically-generated topics like:

• A young, white teen who stabs another white teen is told by the judge that she will tried as a black man.  She subsequently is killed by white supremacists who shout "that's what you get for killing a white girl."
• The history of the handjob and the man who "invented" it.
• A recognition that one of the ONN correspondents took 2nd place in the "Touch Screen Awards" (because he superciliously uses one to show the most vacuous material just like they do on the big new networks.)
• A report on an attractive correspondent who has been kidnapped by terrorists - and both ONN anchors are horrified that her hair is "so flat."  They even draw a diagram to show the flatness.
• A report on an FDA Official who tells America to "Just Eat A Goddamn Vegetable.

The show reminds me of the best of the crazed comedy writers from the groundbreaking "National Lampoon" magazine who displayed a cover where they were going to kill a dog if you didn't buy a magazine, and the fact that if you hold a hamster upside down by its legs, its eyes fall out; and that if you fart, burp, and sneeze at the same time, you die.

The humor is also somewhat reminiscent of  the brilliant and ahead-of-its- time madmen at The Firesign Theater.  (Oh yeah - and "The Onion.")

Profane, insane and at times inane.   The Onion News Network went right to a Season Pass on my Tivo and will stay there are long as they continue to deliver such wacky and wicked comedy.

Fridays at 10/9c IFC Channel

~~~

And now for something completely different...

"Portlandia"  I did not expect to really like - the teasers looked flat and somewhat masturbatory.  Fred Arminsen is certainly a funny man and quite creative. Some of his SNL skits are terrifically funny (I love the testosterone-driven, clueless producer who steps in for the female therapist on her talk show) - but not everything hits with accuracy.  He fails more than succeeds but when he succeeds, he does it large.

"Portlandia" certainly could be one of those massive successes.  If you like wacky, and at times weird, understated sketch comedy

Arminsen, and his partner on the show, vocalist/guitarist Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney,) act out the most outrageous and goofy portrayals of people of Portland where, as it's mentioned in the pilot. the silly, slacker 90's still live.  A place where you can still want to do nothing except eat organic tofu and ride a bicycle to work.

Sketch comedy is usually uneven and this is no exception.  But in the finest tradition of the classic "SCTV" the sketches almost always at least amuse and do cause chuckles and a few real guffaws of joy.  

Arminsen is nothing if not comedically watchable with his plastic face and infectious, slapstick enthusiasm for his characters; and Brownstein plays her roles with a personal truth that is hard to imagine given how different they all are.  In other words, she's a damned good comedic actress - and fun to watch.

In perhaps the funniest sketch of the show, producer/director/actor and HBO rising star Steve Buscemi ("Boardwalk Empire") plays a frustrated customer who only wants to use the bathroom in a shop that sells - hell, I'm not really sure - but the results are fun-ny as the dimwitted, unaware clerks continually unconsciously thwart him even as they indict him for his sexist and unenlightened attitude.

In another, continuing sketch, Arminsen and Brownstein visit a cultish organic farm before they order a chicken dish to make sure the chicken had a lovely life before it was put on the menu.  

The show is (so far) six-episodes and certainly funny and absurd enough to keep me wanting to see them all.

Imagine, perhaps, if you had been able to see "Fawlty Towers" first run.  That's the kind of show this could become given the promise of the first episode.

Jonathan Krisel also is listed as one of the creators.  Even at a fairly  young age, Krisel has a ton of great comedy cred including SNL and some of their digital shorts.

Upcoming, this is from the IFC website:
An assortment of guest stars inhabit PORTLANDIA, including Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks, Sex & The City), Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation), Selma Blair (Legally Blonde, Hellboy), Heather Graham (The Hangover), Edie McClurg (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Kumail Nanjiani (Michael & Michael Have Issues), Jason Sudeikis (SNL, The Cleveland Show), and Gus Van Sant (Milk). Singer/songwriter Aimee Mann also guest stars, alongside James Mercer (The Shins), and local Portland musicians Jenny Conlee and Colin Meloy (The Decemberists) and Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney).
 

Fridays, 10:30/9:30c IFC Channel