Dog Bites Man: Assignment: Republican Leadership Conference

(S01E04)

Marty: I saw a black Republican finally.

Kevin: No way! Did you make a wish?

Before the Daily Show was around and started doing its "Indecision 2000" (or whatever year it happened to be), Comedy Central used the same title for election year specials where they would send comedians out on the floor of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to "interview" politicians and pundits and generally just kid around. I recall one moment when a comedian yelled from a balcony down to Barbara Bush asking her to tell the viewers a knock knock joke. The whole thing was a gag, and most people knew that and played along.

Last night, the KHBX team visited a Republican Leadership Conference to do essentially the same thing. The minor difference with this show, however, is that they play it absolutely straight, which only served to confuse the people they came into contact with, but also resulted in probably the funniest episode so far.

First off, Kevin takes place in a panel discussion which suddenly takes a weird turn when someone mentions the term "hegemony" and Kevin has to pretend as if he knows what the word means, at one point blurting out something about "the political arm of hegemony," which elicits confused stares from the audience and a few chuckles from his fellow panelists.

Meanwhile, the team have to double up on rooms, so Tillie decides to room with Marty, who seems like the least threatening of the three men. Marty has a crush on Tillie but tries to hide it, instead playing along with her insistence that they have "girl's night" complete with pillow fights and a game of  "Truth or Dare." There's a great moment during their pillow fight when Marty clearly becomes fed up with being emasculated by Tillie, and begins to beat Tillie even harder with the pillow until she begs him to stop. The moment is very funny, but it also adds a bit more "reality" to the character. Reno 911! and the improv movies helmed by Christopher Guest all have moments like that, and while they're not always the most hysterical moments, they give the show a little more depth than just being a series of detached gags.

What really made this episode for me, however, was finally getting to see Zach Galifianakis running on all cylinders. Up until now he's had a few good lines, but none of that "Zach-iness" I love so much. Alan (Galifianakis) decides to gather signatures for a petition to get his mother out of jail. It seems she's been incarcerated for tazering twenty-two dogs, an odd habit that started off small but then became kind of a hobby. He also informs another attendee that his mother has cat pheromones, which is why dogs attack her.