Crossballs (Tuesdays through Thursdays, 7:30 pm est on Comedy Central) is a new show on comedy central which proves how incredibly stupid people are in the most hilarious way possible. The show is a spoof of the "pundits debating" genre of shows popular on cable channels that claim to be 24-hour news channels, which obviously they can't be if they take time out of the 24-hours in a day to have shows where idiots yell at each other without listening to the other idiots yelling at them. With pundit debate shows being as asinine as they are it might not seem to be very difficult to parody them, but Crossballs spoofs the genre with the ideal format; half of the time you're laughing with someone, and the other half of the time you're laughing at someone.

If you haven't seen the show, here's the premise: it is your standard "pundits interrupting other pundits with yelling" show. There are four "experts" in the studio, with discussion mediated by a host. There are also experts who appear on the show "via satellite." Except those experts, as well as two of the experts in the studio and the host, are actors. Every show has only two "real" experts, pundits who believe the show is a legit debate show. These are the people who you are laughing at. Everybody else on the show is a comedian. And with the except of Chris Talman, the host, all the comedians on the show are playing characters that are hyperboles.

The Comedians who portray experts are Matt Besser ("Upright Citizens Brigade"), Mary Birdsong ("The Daily Show"), Andrew Daly ("MadTV") and Jerry Minor ("The Daily Show," "Saturday Night Live," "Mr. Show," "Trigger Happy TV," and "Anchorman"). On Crossballs one could probably say that the people they portray aren't even remotely realistic; not that they aren't convincing in their roles, but the roles they play are completely ridiculous. This is the part of the show you are laughing with. But the part the show you are laughing at is how the real experts actually believe the comedians are who they say they are and continue to argue with them.

Here is an example of that: on the episode of the show dedicated to the marijuana debate Jerry Minor played a man who started an organization that gives people alternatives to getting high. However, all the alternatives he suggested were things like "masturbate in public" or "huff paint." One of the real experts on the show started angrily yelling at Minor's character about how he is making a mockery of people who actually come up with productive alternatives to drugs. During her lecture, Minor pretends to huff paint, and then pretends to act high from said paint-huffing. The real expert gets even angrier and berates him, telling him that he shouldn't be on TV and he should be in jail.

Now, let me explain why that's funny: obviously, the concept of someone huffing paint while offering alternatives to getting high on a televised debate show is pretty funny. But the fact that somebody believes that a real person would actually do this is even funnier. Now, I don't know a whole lot about paint huffing. But I think I could assume that somebody who partakes in that hobby would be able to wait for the fifteen minutes it would take for them to not be on TV any more to partake in that hobby again. And I might be a few IQ points shy of being described as "go-tarded," but I'd like to think that if I were ever appearing on a television show and somebody else on that show started huffing, it would at least raise some serious doubts in my mind that I wasn't on a real TV show.

But the fact that the real experts are fooled is, by itself, not funny. The comedians could certainly tone it down some and make their performances more believable, but then the show wouldn't be that funny. If I wanted to watch idiots get fooled in a convincing manner by other idiots, I would watch an MTV hidden camera reality show. But there's a reason that the only people who watch shows like "Faking the Video" are also people who need help chewing solid food and have mittens safety-pinned to their jackets year-round. The fact that they aren't very believable yet the experts get so caught up in their own screaming arguments that they still believe the exaggerated characters are real people.

Crossballs is wonderful in that is exploits the fact that everybody, especially idiots who debate on TV, are so terrible at arguing or convincing other people that they are right, yet can't stop trying. On every episode so far the experts sound calm and collected at first, but then they immediately reverted to insults and telling the comedians that they don't deserve to live. Even though they obviously had the high ground and were clearly right, and even though the fake host is always on their side, they still basically lose all the arguments, even when they are morally and legally right, because they always go to "I'm not going to respond to you cause you're stupid and I hate you," argument, which isn't that effective. What happens is that the comedians usually play people who are arguing against common sense, and it's hard to come up with a defense for what is unquestioned basic thought, because nobody ever questions it. Which is why the experts can't come up with arguments better than "you must be stupid." And since the comedians are usually counter to concepts that are basic and unquestioned to the specific experts on each episode, the experts get angry and emotional right away. In fact, so angry and emotional that they lose a rational thought process, which explains why they don't question the fact that the other "experts" on the show are huffing paint or advocating drunk driving.

But the experts also believe the comedians are who they say they are because the experts are, occasionally, complete morons. Here's a fun example: on one episode dedicated to pets and animal rights, Matt Besser played a German dog breeder who wanted to purify the German Shepard race and return it to it's previous glory. When one of the dim-witted experts said he was like a Nazi, it was like when somebody hears a blatantly sarcastic comment and doesn't recognize the sarcasm (for example, consider this exchange: "Ronald Reagan died? What did he die of?" "Oh I heard he scored some bad crack and they found him in an alley in Detroit." "Are, are you serious?")

One concern fans of the show might have is that it won't last very long because it will be harder to find experts to appear on the show who don't know the show is fake. Comedy Central and the show's creators might have been able to keep the fakeness of the show under wraps while they were making the first season. But now that the show has been on the air it might be more difficult to do that. Not only is Comedy Central now sort of required to promote the show, but there are inevitably going to articles about it like, well, this one, that would kind of show any researching pundit that the show is fake.

However, I don't think this will be a problem for Crossballs, because people say the same thing about the correspondent pieces on "The Daily Show." That show is popular enough and has been on the air long enough that you'd think when some redneck who performs root canals on himself gets a call asking if he'd like to be interviewed for "The Daily Show," he would easily be able to find out what they would do to him by just researching the show or, even better, simply watching it. Yet on a near-nightly basis the Daily Show runs these correspondence pieces where they make of idiots to their faces and the idiots don't realize it.

I think we tend to give people too much credit. If you think it is a good idea to waste time and money to found a "Counter Clinton Library," then you probably aren't going to be smart enough to realize when people are laughing at you. And I think the same is going to be applicable to Crossballs. We're overestimating the intelligence of people who would go on a debate show as "experts." First, many people would do anything to be on TV, even if they think they will be made fun of. This is evident in the amount of people who see a news reporter with a camera crew on the street, and then go up behind the reporter so that they will be on TV waving their arms and yelling "WOOOOO!" And second, the label "expert" doesn't necessarily denote someone as smart. Crossballs doesn't use too many educated people as experts; the show uses people who know about the episode's debate topic. For the episode about reality shows, one of the real experts was a classically trained actor. The reason I don't think they will have trouble finding future "experts" is because for any possible debate topic there are countless people who could qualify as "experts." If the topic was fast food, they could use a manager at a McDonald's and a high school health teacher. You don't think that, somewhere in this country, they could find one of each who hasn't heard of the show?

In short, you should watch Crossballs. It is funny. The end.