News Satire Roundup: April 9th

Sunday, April 9

·        Recap of the Week – Vince McMahon’s new mustache, gun violence protests in Tennessee

o   John had some excellent jokes about Vince McMahon’s mustache – My favorites were, “He looks like the answer to the question, ‘What if Salvador Dalí chose to live without imagination?’”, and, “He looks like he’s about to challenge someone to a balloon race around the world.”

o   John had nothing for contempt for the Tennessee House speaker who spoke with dismissive contempt to student protests gun violence but claimed he had no choice but hold a vote on expelling three representatives who stood up for the students, insisting without evidence that they were “inciting violence” – “Okay, so you can’t prove they were inciting violence, but in the interest of safety, you have a responsibility to take their dangerous platform away from them. But if, instead of megaphones, they had, say, something that can fire 100 rounds in a matter of minutes, then sadly, it’s literally impossible to do anything to prevent that because we asked the prematurely embalmed mayor of Whoville [the president of the NRA], and he said no.”

o   He also side eyed Tennessee state legislators who said it was entirely coincidental that they expelled the two Black men but not the one white woman – “ ‘We literally don’t even see color’ is the universal tell for people who spend all day thinking about how they’d like to see less color.”

·        And Now This – It’s Easter, the Most Terrifying Time of the Year

o   A montage of local news anchors expressing trepidation about Easter Bunny suits – In one clip, the anchors flipped between photos of different costumes saying, “Cute bunny…nightmare bunny.”

o   In another story, a reporter intoned in voiceover – “Many encounters with the Easter Bunny provide children with their first intimate understanding of the concept of fight or flight.”

·        Main Story – Homeowners’ Associations

o   John admitted that the story had zero relevance for people under 35, since they were never going to be homeowners – He added, “Sorry, that is the deal you made when you decided to be born after 1988.”

o   For the rest of us, 29% of homeowners in the U.S. live under HOAs, and HOAs manage more than 80% of new housing developments.

o   After reading an extensive, fiddly list of lawncare regulations, John said, “I genuinely can’t tell if those are HOA requirements for taking care of your lawn or rules to Settlers of Catan.”

o   One resident was fined for having a shed in his backyard (even though it was already there when he moved in.) He discovered that the HOA scoped out the shed, which isn’t visible from the street, by using Google Maps imagery – “If you’re relying on the achievements of the space program to find out what someone has in their backyard, it’s probably not your business.”

o   This was an important point – “HOAs can have the authority of a government and collect fees and fines like one, but when it comes to accountability, they can actively resist it in ways that government officials can only dream about.”

o   HOAs previously used racial covenants to keep residents of color out of neighborhoods, but now that that’s illegal, they can still discriminate by prohibiting renters who receive public housing assistance, disproportionately prohibiting Black and brown people – “It’s basically a segregation loophole, which, by the way, would be a pretty good slogan for the suburbs.”

o   We ended on one of the show’s trademark “honest ads,” featuring Chris Parnell as a friendly but tyrannical/greedy HOA board member – Some of his HOA’s lawncare requirements included one tree, three gnomes, “a Victorian child playing hopscotch,” and an American flag.

o   One of the residents in the ad lamented, “They found my shed by strapping a GoPro to a raccoon.”