Correspondent Spotlight: The Best of Ed Helms

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Another issue dear to the hearts of American is the right to bear arms. But how secure is that right? Well, our own at Helms recently traveled to Arizona to find out.

Arizona State Legislator Randy Graff values our Second Amendment right to bear arms, and.

I don't see why that right should be abridged. Well, you're doing just about anything.

So he proposed a bill that would close up a bizar loophole in Arizona law.

Senate Bill twelve to ten. There's a very simple measure that would change our Arizona statutes and a lot of the carrier of weapons into establishments at serve of alcohol.

You hurt him right. For some insane reason, bars in Arizona are currently gun free.

Is there anything more terrifying than a room full of people without guns?

I guess what would be more terrifying would be a room full of people not allowed to have guns.

Just got chills.

Grafts bill to allow guns and bars has already passed the House. But even common sense ideas have their opponents, like Democratic Representative John Laredo.

When people drink, we don't allow them to drive. Why, Well, because their motor skills are inhibited and their judgment is inhibited.

Drinking and driving is illegal because cars can crash and kill people. A gun is hardly a car.

A gun is more dangerous than a car if you've got alcohol involved. So I'm just saying that guns and bars shouldn't be alone with alcohol.

There's no need to shout. Okay for shouting at me.

As a gun owning former marine, John Laredo is hardly qualified to evaluate gun laws, unlike Randy Graff, whose views are informed by his experience as a golf pro.

For me, it's relatively simple. For many years I had to interpret the rules of golf, and the rules of golf book is sixty five pages or so long. We've got our Constitution here. I read that as my newest rule book.

If the Arizona Legislature passes this bill, I'm sorry, Can we go back for a second here? Did he just compare the Constitution to a book of golf rules?

Oh?

Man?

Who love this guy?

Anyway?

The majority of the people that we've heard from are very opposed to this legislation, So aren't you just cow twing to the majority of Arizonians? I think any reasonable rational person.

Cow towing to me, aren't.

You Look, if you're so paranoid that you don't believe you can walk into a bar without a gun, then you probably shouldn't be there in the first place.

What are you gonna do if a bear walks into a bar and you're unarmed, You're gonna get eaten by that bear.

So how will this law affect those on the front lines? I spoke with Ernie Ross, who owns the Steelhorse Saloon, a local drinking establishment for motorcycle enthusiasts.

Evidently, the person who is behind trying to push this bill has no experience in the bar business. Liquor and firearms don't mix.

Alcohol causes conflicts, Firearms resolve conflicts.

It's a no brainer.

Logic tells you that alcohol and firearms don't mix.

If, yeah, if you're a pussy.

If you're a pussy.

Ernie and I had a delightful chat, a rational exchange of ideas.

All right, you're calling me a pussy, So would you prefer me taking this bottle of beer I got in my hand and cracking it over your face? Or do you prefer me reaching to my back pulling out my fire arm and putting a bullet between your eyes. Which do you prefer?

I would say, if you hit me over the face with a beer bottle.

Then then you're you're you're being a pussy.

To prove to the pussies that guns and liquor do mix, I conducted. I conducted a scientific experiment.

I'll be right back.

I did find that a small amount of alcohol made me somewhat more aggressive. Yeah, but with the appropriate dosage, my behavior changed completely.

You shut.

Oh man, go ahead here. I headed back to the Steelhorse saloon and had the time of my life, that is until I reminded them that they're all a bunch of pussies. If only I'd brought my gun.

In the last few years, America's so called culture war, it's been sadly overshadowed by our so called war war, but the saddle battles continue to be raged all across the country.

At Helms reports on.

One last year, Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay marriage, and critics feared the worst.

If gay marriage is legalized, madam, then you're going to have to legalize polygamy.

Marriage is really to redefine it out of existence.

A break down to the family, children being born out of wedlock, and communities and cultures indicate. Now just one year later, Massachusetts pro family activist Brian Camankert believes those fears have become reality.

You know, the gay marriage issue is destructive on many levels. You have to deal with it in business, you have to deal with it in the public school ware, you have to deal with it in the public schools.

So the quality of life has decreased. Yeah, holmlessness gone up. I can you know crime rates, crime rates, air quality.

I mean, let me put it this way. I could if I could sit here and I could probably you know, find some way of connecting the dots to gay marriage to all of these if I had enough time and I did some research.

Yeah.

Why take time to do the research when saying it is so much faster. Besides, the statistics are clear cut. Now that gay marriage is legal, Massachusetts ranks dead last and illiteracy, forty eighth in per capita poverty, and a pathetic forty ninth in total divorces. Somehow, Don and Robert, one of the states first married gay couples, don't see the problem.

A lot of things that affect the state of Massachusetts far more profoundly than you know, two people who love each other and getting married.

Name one thing in Massachusetts that's not ruined? Well, I guess I.

Look at the people way around. I mean, I can't think of anything that gay's marriage has actually caused other than letting people get married.

Easy for them to say.

How does legalized gay marriage affect your relationship with your wife?

Oh?

God, that's such a ridiculous question. I don't want to answer. Are you like asking me serious questions or not?

Of course?

Okay, that's good.

Is it hard to stay interested in your wife with temptation out there?

Let me come on, what are some.

Other gay activities you haven't indulged?

In?

Indulged? What do you mean.

The damage isn't limited to straight marriages.

Has legalized same sex marriages led to more homosexuals?

I think that in the Broadway it has.

Of course, the Broadway has always had its share of homosexuals, But in a broader sense, just how gay has Massachusetts become?

To find out, I'll be using this gay detection device. It's kind of a radar for gayness, or gay radar. It's called a hormometer.

I calibrated the meter and began my invent instigation ugly.

I hate it.

I hate that stupid, I hate that has stupid.

But fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.

I hate it. I hate that.

Oh my god, oh my god.

That's okay, that thinks What does the insidious infiltration of gayness mean for the state?

You know, it's a little scary as to where this movement might be headed. Gay activists use a lot of the pr tactics and propaganda tactics that the Nazis used.

That comparison is a bit extreme, don't you think. I mean, what did the Nazis do that was so bad?

Perhaps?

No comparison captures the perversity of what marriage means todays.

A companion through thick and thin, a warm bed at night.

Yeah yeah, someone to share your life with, someone to grow old.

Yeah, that's disgusting.

Ed Helms.

We'll be right back lovingly.

You know they're raising, you know, the gay flag over Boston City Hall.

I know what you're saying. I used to come here and know one what made now get about it?

Yeah.

My guest tonight is actor, writer and producer Ed Helms.

He's here to talk to us about his show, Rutherford Foles which he co created and stars in. Please welcome at Helms.

Al Right, al right, welcome to the day show. Thank you so much.

Although is it welcome, it's it's a little weird because you you worked in this very same studio for how many years, like five.

Four and a half years and a half years.

Yeah.

I like what you've done with the play.

Oh, thank you very much, Thank you very much. Yes, boshed it up a little bit. We had a little pandemic in the middle, you know, touched a few things.

Up, you know.

Yeah, yeah, but your stuff is still here if you want anything, I hope.

So no one's moved into my office, right, No, no, no, of course not good. Of course that's safe space.

Welcome, Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Thank you.

By the way, I love what you have done, not only with the furniture.

But with the show.

You're crouching it travel.

Yeah, I love what you've done with everything, because I mean.

You're easily one of the funniest people around. You know, many people introduced to you, you know, through the hangover, but everything you've done has just been so funny and rutherford. When I first read about it seemed like, oh you you're trying to throw it all away.

Because it was a story of it.

Really it seems like a crazy story. It's like, how I'm going to play a white guy who goes into a Native American community and basically like fights with them about their own land. It doesn't seem like comedy. Yeah, it's really funny and it's a great story.

Yeah, well it's you know, I guess that was that was the challenge was to try to keep that character sympathetic. I mean, it really is like that the show was born out of this observation just that people were kind of not listening to each other and being crazy and and and so we wanted to kind of depict somebody who who is having trouble kind of hearing opposing views or hearing some that maybe his interpretation of history is

Right, Can I tell you what I love about the show is that it's funny, it's poignant, It has I think stand to be corrected. Possibly the largest Native American writing room in all of television.

Maybe it's like giant. It's up there, even if it's not tough. It's up there, it's up there.

You you you have like a Native American cost, You've done the thing that everyone says it's impossible. Everyone goes like, if you include people, then white people don't work. And it's like you're working, they're working.

It's a great show.

I'm for season two.

I'm doing Okay, you're doing.

Okay, Yeah, you're doing okay.

Yeah.

There's another show called Reservation Dogs, which is also amazing, amazing, and that show has a ton of Native American writers and directors, a lot of our directors. We've shared a lot of directors between the shows. And yeah, it's just it's been an incredibly humbling experience for me. I think, I think before getting into this, I I intellectually understood the value of representation and I would I would, I could talk about it very fluently and advocate for it.

It's been.

It's been incredible.

It shows you know, because like the jokes that you're telling, the storylines that you that you have, it doesn't become something that it's not supposed to be. It becomes fresh, it becomes authentic. It's it's I mean, that's why it got renewed. It is what I think, you know it like season two, it's it's an exciting season change as well.

Uh?

So, yeah, that you know we left at the end of season one, my character really had this like catastrophic identity crisis and uh and and I think going into it and all of season one, really I think my co creators Mike Sure and Sierra Teller Ornellis that three of us like really wanted to grapple with some.

Big ideas and some big issues.

Season two, we were like, well, we kind of did a lot of homework in season one, and this ensemble is so funny and our writers are so let's just like lean into the comedy more. And so I think this season. We still there's still a lot of very sharp satire that I'm very, very proud of. But it's also it's more joyful, it's sillier.

It's just I don't know.

When you say lean into the comedy more, I'm excited, but I'm most.

A little worried because no, I've heard I've heard stories about you. I mean at The Daily Show, you know with John Stewart when you were correspondent, you had a mole removed on camera for the show.

Yeah, that's true.

Like actually like the procedure again on the Hangover you allowed them to take out one of your teeth. Yes, for the movie. That's like a real that not really happened.

Yeah, yeah you see that.

You see you were like, oh special effects. No, that was just him. It was just him being effective, that's all it was. So when you say lean in, are you still willing to do the craziest thing?

For so season two of this show, I remove I get decapitated for me my head. It's like and and you know, thankfully, like we've got great doctors and everything. It's like I'm fine, as you can see, but yeah, I go the extra mile, like do super committed, super method.

Yeah, Like, do you family and friends worry about you? Because I know people who go the extra mileful comedy, Like does your dentist worry? Doesn't you know, do your doctor's worry?

Yeah?

I guess there's nothing. I don't know that if this is a good thing, But there is virtually nothing I.

Won't do for a laugh.

I have no pride or dignity, and so that's a very freeing thing in shows this.

I think it's not just freeing, it's the reason you one of the funniest, most amazing people that we get to watch on screen.

Thank you for being on the show, Thank you.

For joining me. Yeah, I appreciate you. Huge fans.

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