Preliminary review of the new morning show

We listened to about an hour of the new morning show on WZBH, billed as the worst show ever.  It stars Crank and JJ.  Fortunately, there weren't giggling interns, interns looking for a job, or girlfriends to clutter up the show.  The show was simply Crank and JJ.

When we first tuned in, JJ had asked listeners to call or text in whether they would engage in a threesome with Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey just for the money.  The segment was reminiscent of a segment Matt and Crank aired around five months ago that we reviewed as Dollars for Gays. 

Crank stood firm on his "no way" moral grounds, which we found a bit odd.  Five months ago, he at least entertained the idea of having sex for money if no one would know.  But, hey, what can one expect from the holier-than-thou morality braggards other than at least a dash of hypocrisy?

That odd point aside, the segment was funny and held promise for the new show.  We liked JJ from nights, despite his couple of off-hand remarks about gays, and we have always believed that Crank needed to step out of the dark shadow and shine on his own.  The two, at-odds personalities worked and the whole segment was at least mildly amusing.  Yes, we admit that all five of us are probably getting older and don't much care for the bathroom humor like we did when we were kids.

Their next segment, however, put doubts in our heads as to whether or not WZBH was striving for content quality change or just a new voice.  The segment centered on a story out of Texas where an employee of Starbuck's Coffee sued the chain under the Americans with Disabilities Act because the chain refused to allow her to use a step stool so she could do her job.  In typical old-style Matt and Crank fashion, Crank and JJ bashed little people with JJ going so far as to refer to them as "trolls."  The only thing missing from this segment was the comment that throwing water on little people turns them into gremlins, but the flavor of the segment was the same as five months ago.  ( Our review of that show: Gays, Japanese, women, and midgets are fair game.)

Both JJ and Crank tried to make a valid point that using a step stool could create a safety hazard for the other employees, but instead of pursuing their argument along the lines of what "reasonable accomodations" in the act means, they chose to lament the fact that since they are relatively normal White guys, they could never sue, say , the NFL because they lack the talent to be a quarterback.  The overall tone of the segment came across as the poor normal White guys get punished while the midgets and other minorities get rewarded.  By the time they were done their segment, we were left with the feeling that Crank and JJ believe the only jobs little people should hold are playing trolls and leprechauns in the movies or traveling with the local circus as a sideshow act.

We won't enter a debate on this one.  Suffice it to say that the thousands of troops, including the White troops, who are returning home missing arms and legs, confined to a wheel chair, or suffering post traumatic stress syndrome would highly disagree with Crank and JJ's assessment that the Americans with Disabilities Act unfairly favors minorities at the expense of normal White guys.  The act was enacted with good reason.  Little people and all people with disabilities have families to support and bills to pay.  Being limited in career choices to side show freaks isn't a career and hardly pays the bills.

We aren't going to make a big to do about the segment.  Today was their first show.  Crank still hasn't quite found his way out of the dark shadow that enveloped him for the last year or two, and JJ probably went to work this morning thinking he was coming home from a party.  He'll get adjusted to the new day shift and the dark shadow that has had a hold on Crank will slowly lose its grip.

Maybe, just maybe, Crank and JJ will start doing their homework before tackling controversial issues and us listeneners will be treated to entertaining and enlightening segments from two personalities opposite of each other, but complimentary at the same time. 

Oh, and the world doesn't revolve around you.  We have to throw that in.  We're not really that much older than Crank (ok, one of us is), but we feel like we come from a different generation (well, two of us do).  It seems the kids today (those under 35) think that everything happening in the world is somehow about them.  Trust us.  It's not.  The Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, was not designed to punish normal White guys like yourselves.  Do your homework and you might discover that it is a good law enacted with good intentions that has changed the lives of millions of Americans with disabilities.  But, like any manmade law, it is open to abuse by the unscrupulous who just want something for nothing.  We're not saying the case you both talked about this morning is such an example as we don't know all of the details, but based on what little we do know, Starbuck's should fire their lawyers and get new ones.