Take The Tough Crowd Challenge

What I’m about to say will cause much controversy among my circle of friends, but here goes… I absolve Colin Quinn of all past crimes against humanity. See, pretty much everyone I know (myself included, until recently) hates Quinn. I’m just now realizing that circumstances and not Quinn himself are the source of this hatred.

The first time I became aware of Colin Quinn, he had taken over the SNL Weekend Update position from Norm Macdonald. The story goes that Don Ohlmeyer, NBC’s West Coast President, sent a memo to SNL in essence saying “Norm’s not funny, get him off Weekend Update.” So Michaels yanked Norm, and replaced him with Quinn. This did not sit well with us since Norm’s Weekend Update was the funniest thing on the show! And then, here’s this new dude muddling through his lines with that abrupt, flat Quinn delivery… not cool.

I was all set to hate Quinn forever, and then I saw his current show Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn. Oh at first I refused to watch, thinking the show a cheap knock-off of Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect (which was an awesome show). But as the months passed by and the show had yet to be cancelled, I started seeing bits of it… and I liked what I saw! The jokes are brutally funny and when they’re not, the other comedians razz the deliverer of the bomb. And, Quinn self-deprecating style on this show really works! I’m guessing he was funny all along and it was just the poor match up of the Weekend Update format that masked it.

So I challenge all you Quinn haters out there to take the Tough Crowd challenge. If after watching just three simple episodes you aren’t completely satisfied, we’ll give you a full refund*.