Borat still isn’t funny.

Sacha Baron Cohen tries to mine more ambush comedy gold, this time as an Austrian named Bruno:

"Sacha Baron Cohen – famous for hilarious characters Ali G and Borat – was disguised as Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion presenter. He told Yossi Alpher – a former top spy with Israeli secret service Mossad – and Palestinian academic Ghassam Khalib they were filming a youth documentary. Cohen – dressed in black leather and studs – barked out daft questions in a loud Austrian accent.

The comedian ridiculed militant group Hamas, saying: “What’s the connection between a political movement and food. Why hummus?” One of the guests politely explained: “Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political movement. Hummus is a food.” via the Sun

Wow. A hummus joke. AWESOME.

We wrote about the Borat movie a few years back. It was funny, but as we wrote at the time we had some problems with it, and the genre of ambush comedy specifically. Once you start stacking the deck against the subject of the interview, it becomes less and less funny.

When the Daily Show came to Boston for the DNC in 2004, they asked to interview our boss for one of their segments. They were apparently up front with who they were. “Do you watch our show” was one of the questions asked by the person arranging the interview. our guy was well prepared for what was coming. And still they had a funny segment.

As for the Borat style- ambushing someone who gives you their time and is too polite to tell you get the fuck out of their office is not funny. It’s just lazy.