'McCaingels' Fight for the Right

Anti-McCain propagandists and comedians, you are running out of time.  Only 71 days remain until the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election.   If you want your project added to the laundry list of derisive satires populating the web and a chance to make it into the Pool of Relevant Political Spoofs fed by Popular Culture’s Mainstream, now is the time to upload. 

One recent entry comes from 103 year-old (Aside: is it still funny when MySpace profiles say obviously not your real age? Honest question.), Poor White Trash director Mike Addis.  Produced for Atom, his McCaingels are like 23/6‘s McCain Girls except without the song and dance numbers, an emphasis on slapstick instead of hoax, and lower BMIs. 

Strike that, aisde from there being three of each of them they have nothing in common but a mutual laugh at the expensive of Arizona’s senior senator. 

Guided by the voice of John McCain and aided by a deeply troubled Bosley, Whitney (Natasha Leggero), Heidi (Carrie Wiita), and Tze Lan O’Reilly (Kulap Vilaysack) undergo unsanctioned, covert operations to

right America’s left.  In each installment, the happily ignorant, giddy girls twist a soundbyte from Johnnie into a mission (stop a gay marriage, catch Barack Obama peddling cocaine) they later execute with predictable failure.

In McCaingels, Addis throws any hint of political correctness or deference to the wind, littering the series with as many blatant stereotypes as possible.  In the hands of a lesser writer/director this might be a problem, but Addis writes/directs with aplomb.  His characters so exaggerated, his slurs so over the top, his one-liners so ridiculous that nothing can be taken seriously.  This makes it hard not to enjoy.

Combine this with an excellent use of retro-television intros, graphics, scene changes and sound effects, and high-profile, comedy world cameos (though, if you blink you might miss Maria Bamford in episode 1) and you have one entertaining show.

But it still probably won’t dethrone the McCain Girls as the Republican presidential hopeful’s top online serial parody.  Those ladies still crack me up: