CNN's breakout comedy hit
Connie Chung's new talk show, a parade of pedophilia and murder fueled by inane kindergarten-teacher musings, is so flat-out weird it just might acquire a cult following.
By Carina Chocano
July 18, 2002 | Orange being the color of insanity, it's no surprise that it features so prominently in the overall look of CNN's "Connie Chung Tonight." No signature hue for this show, now in its third agonizing week, would make more sense. I'm not suggesting that Connie is actually crazy, but she does seem a little out of sorts. Listless, distracted, occasionally manic. Given to the occasional inappropriate remark. She routinely blanks out. Stumbles while straining to read her cue cards. Says "Thank you" and "Are you finished?" before interviewees have furnished their replies to questions she posed seconds earlier, but long before the station cuts to a break.
OK, so her emotional response system appears to be in need of alignment. The world is full of slick, polished and commanding anchors brimming with authority and poise. At least Connie's not afraid to chime in with a giggly "Noooo!" and "That's incredible!" in the manner of a high school cheerleader chatting with an online pedophile. Delivery, poise, lucidity, coherence, the ability to understand a joke or reference, a solid command of the facts and having a clue aren't everything.
Despite the drubbing she's received since her show debuted, Chung still inexplicably enjoys a reputation as a "tough" and perspicacious interviewer. No doubt there are subjects to which her style might be perfectly suited. If she were interviewing a well-behaved preschooler, she'd be right on the money. Otherwise, her slow, earnest and deliberate delivery, so soothing in a kindergarten teacher, seems ill-suited to the rape and murder stories that have already become her stock in trade.
I haven't even mentioned Chung's disconcerting word choices, as when she says: "Forty-two-year-old Carol Sund, daughter Julie, 15, and family friend Silvina Pelosso, 16, were savagely killed by a handyman." Somehow the inclusion of the murderer's occupation feels jarringly irrelevant; it's as though, in her eagerness to present us with all the facts, the important ones get lost in the shuffle.
It's hardly been a slow news month in the world, yet "Connie Chung Tonight" seems fixated on grisly tales of personal tragedy and senseless loss. For every story about a murdered child, there is an interview with a grieving parent. Granted, it's impossible to make sense of events such as these, but it's also hard to see the point of insights such as this one, made as Connie interviews the parents of the murdered woman. "Carol, you did say one thing which I thought was quite extraordinary. You said, it's remarkable how normal he looks, and yet he is of course a monster."
Indeed. One is, of course, always on the lookout for a Cyclops or three-headed dog, but regular-looking guys are not generally thought to be dangerous. Earlier, referring to the murder trial, she mused to the victims' family, "The details have been so gruesome. I don't know how the two of you have the courage to sit there and listen to it."
If her observations are often startlingly inane, her insights and opinions are sometimes amusingly nonsensical. In a piece on John Walker Lindh's prison sentence, she talked about the disappointment that slain CIA agent Johnny Micheal Spann's parents felt at the verdict, saying, "They thought he should get the death penalty at least. At the very least!" Who knew there was more?
In an earlier piece on Paul Weiser, the man turned in to the police by Dear Abby columnist Jeanne Phillips after he wrote her describing his sexual feelings for little girls, she declared erroneously, "Suddenly a man who never touched a child was looking down the barrel of a life prison sentence." Actually, as Chung explained later, what Weiser faced -- and got -- was eight years' probation and a year of electronic surveillance after he pleaded guilty to possessing child porn. Then, at the end of the segment, Chung wondered whether Phillips did the right thing by turning him in, or whether she had violated pervert-columnist privilege.
Maybe it's all the pedophile stories, but Connie seems to be having trouble focusing. When she is not sleepwalking through her interviews, her sudden enthusiasms seem misplaced. Introducing yet another tale of personal terror, she exclaims, "Tomorrow, you must see this story! It's a horrifying story!"
A horrifying story calls for a bombastic voice-over announcer, and CNN has gone with the ubiquitous voice of alarm that spices up many morning talk shows. (I seem to recognize the voice from "The View," though I am loath to compare that show with "Connie Chung Tonight," as it is consistently cannier and more relevant, even when presenting the new JC Penney fashions.) It's a voice so exalted with alarm that it's in constant danger of adding a touch of humor to stories intended to be serious or at least shocking.
An example: The voice intones, "Up next, should you step on a scale before you step on a plane? Overweight fliers, caught in the balance. When 'Connie Chung Tonight' continues," as the camera trains on -- do I have to say it? -- a montage of big-butt-on-the-street shots.
Next page: Is this really Connie Chung -- or the secret spawn of Maury Povich?