Anyone catch Insomniac's southern tour?

[JunktionFET]

I turned on Comedy Central and was greeted with a shot of Raleigh's skyline... YAY!

Dave was at Charlie Goodnight's, then stopped by the Old Bar and Thee Dollhouse. He also visited Cary (hahaha). Then he took a drive to Durham to visit the prison.

After that he drove all the way to Shelby (?? of all places), then drove east again to Charlotte. He spent a good bit of time in Charlotte actually before heading down to Florence SC. After that he hit up Athens GA. I was unable to catch the rest of the program, but at least I got to see the NC stuff. It was pretty funny actually.

[TravisNC]

I saw the commercials, but I didn't see the show. I figured it would piss me off. How did they portray the South? The commercials made it look like some sophisticated Yankee was coming to the underbelly of the world (I don't remember the specific line they used).

I hate the fact that the only time you ever see Southerners on TV is when SNL or MadTV does a skit about hillbillies. Even in movies every Southerner is portrayed as a hillbilly or racist redneck.

Comedy Central seems to have it out for the South lately. In addition to Insomniac, that Colin Quinn show has a commercial with some guys talking about how so many Southerners still fly the rebel flag. Sure, there aren't any racists in the North, Midwest, or West.

[JunktionFET]

Well Raleigh and Charlotte were portrayed pretty inoffensively IMO. They might have tried to find some way to pick at NC's two largest cities, but in the end Raleigh and Charlotte came across in a sophisticated light (that is, as sophisticated as nightlife can be), which is fitting. Most of the people Dave talked to were typical people you'd bump into anywhere around town.

I found the scenes where they were driving on I-440 in darkness (no street lights) and stuck in traffic on 74 quite humorous.

During his stand up routine at Charlie Goodnight's, he said something like "Raleigh is a college town, right?"... and that started a line of jokes about college students. After bar hopping in Raleigh, they went to Cary to race model cars (errr...). Afterwards they went to Durham and toured the prison... which was a little odd.

In an effort to throw a little "culture" into it, they drove to some kind of BBQ competition in (or near) Shelby NC--complete with the thick rural western NC accents and all!

After that he drove to Charlotte and his opening line whilst walking down Tryon was "Ahhh, this is more like it... This is Charlotte", or something like that. It was halloween night and he went to the Gravedigger's Ball. Hell, I went there and don't remember seeing him. Then again there were literally thousands of people there.

After partying in Charlotte for a while, they drove all the way to Florence SC and toured a cotton plant! HAHA... ohhhh yeah!

Then they drove to Athens GA and partied with some college kids--that scene wasn't very offensive either IMO.

If there was more to the program, I missed it... had to go somewhere. Damn...

[cityboi]

as usual Greensboro and Winston-Salem are left out of the picture.

[TravisNC]

It sounds like we came out alright. Their commercials made it sound like they were going to visit a ton of fundamentalists, rednecks, and hicks. I could just picture them visiting Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell in VA or going to a KKK meeting.

[appatone]

I didn't get to see the Raliegh portion, I only caught from Charlotte on. I have to say that Charlotte and Athens did come off well. The only questionable part was whaen he visited a Civil War re-enactment camp. I'm not sure if this was Florence or Athens, but there were some pretty rough looking people around. I cringed a little but it wasn't too bad. Rural nightlife is sketchy anywhere, not just in the south, but the cities made a pretty good showing.

[monsoon]