Is Tosh.0 Morally Superior to America's Funniest Home Videos?

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Watch ABC's America's Funniest Home Videos and you'll see host Tom Bergeron chuckling as kids whack their grandfathers in the groin with pinata sticks. The audience chortles good-naturedly along with him.

In contrast, the laughter on Comedy Central's Tosh.0 is snide and mean-spirited. "As each clip is replayed," writes James Parker in the December 2012 Atlantic, host Daniel Tosh "tries, in a supremely idle way, to say the most merciless and terrible thing he can possibly say about it." Tosh's unabashed sadism inspires Parker to quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge's description of a "devil at the very end of hell, warming himself at the reflection of the fire in the ice."

In this video, Parker contrasts scenes from the two shows. Along the way, he argues that Bergeron's genial jibes are even more insidious than Tosh's demonic joy.




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Jennie Rothenberg Gritz is an Atlantic senior editor. More

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, an Atlantic senior editor, began her association with the magazine in 2002, shortly after graduating from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. An early highlight of her Atlantic career was a visit with Harold Bloom, during which the renowned literary critic addressed her as "my little bear."

In January 2006, Jennie joined the Atlantic staff full time. She currently oversees a number of different areas -- producing the online edition of the magazine and its special features, editing TheAtlantic.com's National channel, and creating original videos for the website.

Before coming to The Atlantic, Jennie was senior editor of Moment, a national magazine founded by Elie Wiesel, where she remains a contributing editor. Her writing has also appeared in The Chicago Tribune and in the book The Kindness of Strangers, a Lonely Planet travel writing anthology.

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