Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
In a hilarious, biting segment that aired Wednesday, Daily Show correspondent Nate Corddry went quail hunting. “I wanted to hunt pheasant like the vice president,” Corddry explained.
Vice President Dick Cheney made news last month when he accidentally shot a friend while hunting quail and pheasant on a Texas farm. Many satirical pieces and cartoons have spoofed Cheney’s accident, but this segment is the funniest one I have seen. The segment — the highlight of Wednesday’s episode — also did an excellent job of showing how stupid, unfair, and easy hunting is on canned hunting at ranches like the one Corddry visited. “It is like regular hunting but with a menu,” Corddry said.
As the segment starts Corddry, asks employees at the ranch how hunting there varies from traditional hunting. Well, he is told, at the ranch it is guaranteed that not only are the animals you are hunting there, but it is arranged so you can easily shoot them. “One thing I have always hated about hunting was the challenge,” Corddry replies. “Who has time to hunt and track prey anymore?”
As Corddry mocked the entire experience, the ranch employees appeared clueless that they were about to get hit with more ammo than Cheney’s friend.
At one point, for example, Corddry is being told the cost of paying to hunt and kill various birds, with the help of a pointing dog. Well, Corddry asks, how much does it cost to shoot the dog? The employees have to explain that the dog is not on the menu.
Soon after Corddry announces, “The hunt is on.” He and the employees are shown in a car driving to a building with a sign, “The Bird Barn,” where Corddry says, “We tracked our prey to this barn, where they were hiding in a quail cage. I made my move.” There, he picks out which birds he wanted to “hunt.” The birds were brought out in a sealed laundry basket because “God forbid they would get away and we would have to spend all day hunting them down.”
Then the birds were placed in brush from which they could not get free. As the bird dog flushed out the prey, Corddry summarized his feelings: “I finally understood the thrill hunters feel when a pheasant is flushed out. It was like an Easter egg hunt… of death!”
After shooting a pheasant he said, “That felt great. I rest in the knowledge that, like the vice president, I too had what it took to shoot something that has no chance of ever getting away.”
The rest of the show was pretty underwhelming. The interview segment was with actress Natalie Portman, who was promoting her new movie V Is For Vendetta. She is cute and parts of it were funny but it was not hilarious or terribly revealing or informative.
The show was better than Monday’s but not nearly as good as
