Posted in: HBO, Max, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: Bill Maher, HBO, max, opinion, Real Time

New HBO Deal Means Bill Maher Can Stop Crying Over Being "Canceled"

HBO announced Real Time with Bill Maher will be back for two more seasons - which doesn't fit well with Maher's fears about being "canceled."

It's Friday night – which means that if you're a fan of Bill Maher, you're probably checking out tonight's episode of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher – with Eric Holder (former attorney general under President Barack Obama, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and co-author of Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote-A History, a Crisis, a Plan), Rep. Nancy Mace (Republican Congresswoman from South Carolina), and Rep. Ro Khanna (Democratic Congressman who represents California's Silicon Valley). It also means that you probably heard the news from earlier this week that Maher will be sticking around HBO at least through 2026 – with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav's selfie buddy getting a new two-year deal. But what you should be celebrating the most is that Maher has been wrong all of this time – and he's benefitted from being wrong.

Over the past few years, folks like Maher, Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, and others have been whining about how their comedic freedom of speech has been stifled by "woke-ism" and how it impacts them professionally. And then they end up getting "canceled" into sweeter deals year after year. In this case, we're talking about Warner Bros. Discovery  – a company that will kill films & shows without batting an eye for the sake of a tax write-off. Warner Bros. Discovery doesn't "rage against the machine" – it is "the machine." And it's not like HBO is some pirate radio station broadcasting from international waters. So the next time you hear Maher going on about "woke," "cancel," and other terms that he doesn't quite seem to understand, just remember how much he's getting paid to play the victim.

Seth MacFarlane Takes On Bill Maher Over COVID, Vaccines

Beginning at around the 36:45 mark on an episode of his Club Random podcast from December 2023, Maher reveals that he had a medical researcher whom he pays to – we're assuming, based on the title that Maher gave them – research medical stuff. And that led to Maher's first brain-bleeder – and a major point that Seth MacFarlane (Ted, The Orville) makes clear that he and Maher part ways on – that a good researcher on medical issues doesn't need to be a doctor – and, Maher added, probably knows more than your doctor. It would be like saying someone who can look up online & compile everything you need to know about performing heart surgery is just the same or possibly better than someone who actually went to medical school and performed a heart surgery. After Maher shared that he believed doctors are wrong a lot of times, offering that natural immunity wasn't given a chance to work – which MacFarlane countered by noting that numbers of folks contracted COVID on more than one occasion, punching holes in the natural immunity argument.

From there, Maher continued with a stream of personal anecdotes that he attempted to pass off as either fact or representative of a large part of the population. But where it got really short-sighted on Maher's part – and what set up MacFarlane for the perfect response – was when he raged about there being side effects from the vaccine. To be clear, vaccines that are regularly mandated and have been for some time –  and that have helped save millions of lives –  all come with side effects. And yet, for some reason, Maher and his ilk seem to have their pitchforks & fiery torches focused solely on the COVID vaccine. MacFarlane asks Maher why this is so different from the others – and it's the awkwardness of how quiet Maher gets that makes the clip more than worth it.

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