Humor show may be fishing for foolery

Comedy Central may be trying to film a phony talk show in Spokane, to air in June as part of a 10-part “Dog Bites Man” series.

Comedy Central bills the series as “an outrageous, improvised, single camera show that features a group of dysfunctional fake newscasters interacting with real people.” But Jeanna Hofmeister isn’t amused.

Hofmeister, a vice president at the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau, fielded a call Monday from a woman looking for a studio to mock-up as a talk show. The call triggered mortifying memories of a recent Los Angeles Times article, she said.

In late March, dozens of Orange County residents showed up for a taped panel discussion, purportedly to discuss media ethics in political coverage. The event attracted members of a Republican women’s club, the Democratic Party of Orange County and the League of Women Voters, who were paid $20 to participate.

But comedian and panelist Matt Walsh, posing as “Kevin, a TV reporter from Spokane,” quickly derailed the conversation.

“He was doing a bad Ron Burgundy impersonation,” the Times quoted one participant as saying, referring to comedian Will Ferrell’s character in the 2004 movie “Anchorman.”

Walsh reminisced about an interview subject who wanted to have sex with him and other off-color exploits, according to the Times story. Other panelists, not yet realizing the show was a spoof, tried to carry on with serious debate.

The Spokane association was not flattering, said Hofmeister, the CVB’s director of destination marketing. “If you’re the destination marketing person, you don’t want that stuff out there about the destination,” she said.

Some panelists were furious about Comedy Central’s deception and are considering filing a lawsuit, according to an article in Orange County Weekly.

“It really left the people on the talk show and panel feeling violated, that they were in their ‘mockumentary,’ ” Hofmeister said.

The woman who called Hofmeister identified herself as an employee of Coast to Coast Productions, though her e-mail appeared to link her to Comedy Central. She denied a connection to the program but hasn’t called back since Hofmeister confronted her.

“All signs point toward us,” said Comedy Central spokesman Steve Albani, when a reporter described the e-mail to him. However, he hadn’t been able to confirm whether the network planned to tape a show in Spokane.

Coast to Coast Productions has also been in touch with Spokane City Hall. Susanne Croft, the city’s film program manager, expects the company to submit an application for a film permit, which is required when companies shoot footage in public spaces.

Albani said the California participants signed a waiver, clearly stating that they were at the taping for entertainment purposes.

“You want to get honest reactions from the people you’re interviewing,” he added. “It’s up to the correspondent to bring the humor in.”

If show participants knew it was comedy, and tried to crack jokes themselves, the parody would flop, he said.

Hofmeister thinks potential participants should know that they could end up on Comedy Central, looking like buffoons.

“Be forewarned,” she said, “if you get an invitation to anything.”

Then again, Albani noted, “people will do a lot to get on TV.”