The Daily Show’s Mo Rocca has really outdone himself this time!
This has got to be one of the funniest bits I’ve ever seen.
Apparently, there’s a new syphilis outbreak, and the Dept. of Health hired an advertising company to run some focus groups and find out the best way to deal with the problem.
The result: The Healthy Penis. A squeaky clean fallice with a big smile to help people understand about healthy genital hygiene. San Francisco residents responded very positively to The Healthy Penis.
Everything seemed great, until it was time for The Healthy Penis to bring the campaign down to Los Angeles. Citizens there, such as Ron Jeremy, objected to a healthy penis being used as a symbol for syphilis. As an alternative, organizations in L.A. created “Phil the Sore” to start a negative campaign using scare tactics to educate the public about syphilis, (rather than having a healthy genital representative’s positive tips and information).
This film was produced by Jim Margolis and Edited by Einar Westerlund.
This is from the August 20, 2003 program.
The Daily Show – Sore Loser (Small – 10 MB)
The Daily Show (The best news on television.)
When did Mo Rocca get back? (I don’t remember seeing him for at least a few months) His bow tie is great!
mo rocca’s reporting was brilliant and very well-done. having been in the healthy penis costume and been under the interviewing eye of rocca, he was really quite good. i hope that folks know that — all jest aside– the department of health was serious about the campaign and the results of the campaign remain meritorious; while the penis and chancre seemed comical, the reality of syphillis in the community was neither funny nor a joke. i applaud comedy centrl and the daily show for showcasing this intervention , no matter how tongue in cheek they were.