The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

A 15-second Greg Gutfeld clip has the left and the media spinning for days, and they cannot see their own issues in the process.

Man, just imagine the meltdown if they could have afforded a full-minute commercial!

During Sunday’s Super Bowl, amid the glut of commercials that managed to generate news, there was a brief promo run by Fox News for Gutfeld!, its late-night talk show. The brief, 15-second clip has the host outfitted in monarchal attire on a throne. Co-host Tyrus is in knighted chainmail, and Kat Timpf is seen fleetingly in Medieval frocks. 

The piece poked fun at the small fortune needed to air during the NFL championship and was a provocation to the other talk shows as well as the media. Here’s the clip if you managed to get up to refill the nachos.

Blink and you missed it! Here's the 15-second Super Bowl ad for 'Gutfeld!' — all 15 seconds of it. pic.twitter.com/ckssPOPQT4

— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) February 13, 2023

It has been revealing to see the reactions this promo has fostered from the leftists. One Media Matters drone produced a video to combat the spot, because there is nothing more engaging than someone lecturing us on why something is not funny. This hostess, Kat Abu, was so rattled by the Gutfeld spot she managed to drone on with a video that is ten times longer than his clip

More revealing was an interview on the Dean Obeidallah Show, with Lizz Winstead, the creator of the Comedy Central late-night program The Daily Show. Yes, this segment also gave us instructions on how Gutfeld! is not actually funny, but there are numerous other quotes and details supplied which reveal the main reasons these people are losing to him in the ratings.

Since Gutfeld! was introduced in the Spring of 2021 there has been a uniform effort by those in the know to declare how the program is not to be included among the late-night gab-fests. At the time, Brian Stelter declared the show’s arrival was both a move further to the right by Fox (no explanation given) and somehow a departure away from news (funny, considering Gutfeld! covers the news, while at the same time, CNN was featuring actor Stanley Tucci in prime time with a cooking program.)

Recently, the network’s CEO, Chris Licht, gave an interview, and when the subject of Gutfeld’s show was brought up, he too was dismissive. 

“I would call him just an entertaining show. I would not call him a late-night show. As someone who worked on a late-night show and knows what goes into that, I wouldn’t put it in the same category.”

Another example of this effort to say that Gutfeld! doesn’t count was brought up in the Obeidallah interview. The host prefaced the portion with Lizz Winstead by acknowledging that Gutfeld is beating the others in the ratings, but hedges by suggesting it is not a fair comparison.

Fox News is running “King of Late Night” Greg Gutfeld dressed like a king and technically he starts at 11 PM Eastern Time, it’s half an hour earlier but he beat Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel now consistently in the ratings. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.

I don’t know one comic going “I hope I get on Gutfeld!” Lizz, you created The Daily Show. Is Greg Gutfeld’s bull***t considered a late night comedy show?

This opened the door for Winstead to launch into a profane diatribe, hardly the sort to endear her to potential viewers nor to position herself as an elevated thinker worthy of consideration.

Look, here’s what I always say, he ain’t funny to me but we see that there’s an audience out there for s*** like that. There’s an audience out there for s*** like Joe Rogan. There’s an audience out there of f***ng-s*****y people. Seventy million people voted for Trump, like Fox News. Those people are going to laugh at s*** we think is f***ed up. So you know, the bottom line is do I want them as my audience? No. I would never want to go on that show. It would never benefit me in any way. All that would happen was I’d try to be on there and you would just get trolls in your Twitter field from here to eternity.

So is he funny? Not to me. But he makes jokes about s*** that I care about, which is gross. I think that whole situation is gross but there is a market for it. The bottom line is there is a market for it. 

First, the issue about the Gutfeld! airtime has only a little bit of validity. By being broadcast at 11pm ET it means the show plays at 10 pm Central, and in areas at 8 pm in the Pacific time zone. This is looked at as some kind of unfair advantage. There’s another program that comes on at 11 pm – Winstead’s The Daily Show. Somehow TDS does not enjoy an advantage, especially when you see it draws a fraction of Gutfeld’s audience at the same time. Last week TDS was beaten by Gutfeld! with ratings nearly seven times larger.

But any talk of the show enjoying some kind of unfair edge is laughable, just starting with the fact that the main networks are showing in more homes. You have hosts who have been at the job for years, on programs that have been entrenched for decades. They are known brands, with a monstrous head start. Then, let’s look at the comment made by Winstead about never appearing on that show.

This is emblematic of a reality faced with Hollywood acting exclusionary towards conservatives. Gutfeld recently spoke with podcasting giant Adam Corolla, and on that appearance, he detailed specifically how difficult it is for him to bring on writers and other content producers, because most of them fear getting blacklisted in the industry. This also, obviously, extends to celebrities and other notable names who are not willing to appear on Gutfeld’s panels. 

To say Gutfeld enjoys an advantage when being unable to bring in core talent, and not benefitting from star power, is ridiculous. To see him rise to the top despite those handicaps is downright amazing. Winstead’s other comments though underscore just how much obliviousness is in play with those in this realm of entertainment.

When Lizz says. “he makes jokes about s*** that I care about, which is gross,” she pretends that her own program, and the other late-night shows, do not mock and ridicule news and policies that the Gutfeld audience cares about. This was noted last year as Stephen Colbert invited on dozens of notables from the Democratic Party and other assorted liberals; only one guest was found who could be called conservative. Be assured, conservative values were mocked aplenty. Somehow, it is only unseemly when the Gutfeld! Panels when do so.

But it goes further. Winstead, just after the Super Bowl, made an appearance on The Daily Show, [the 17-minute mark] sitting in with guest host Sarah Silverman. (Trevor Noah has recently vacated the desk.) During her appearance, Winstead was not the least bit amusing. I do not mean her jokes were not funny — she was unfunny because she barely told any. She spent the time hyping her pro-choice activism and her abortion assistance organization. Her entire visit was a mirth-free lobbying effort on behalf of killing babies…but she wants to be the arbiter of what constitutes comedy.

This is the kind of insulated thinking that has them losing in the ratings. Gutfeld makes fun of the “wrong” things, meanwhile, their activism disguised as entertainment is something to cheer for. Look at how, in one day, Winstead goes from “That’s not funny” to, “I’d like to talk seriously about abortion.” That is actually amusing but likely not in the way this comedian wanted. 

Little wonder her show is getting smashed like a Happy Meal toy tossed out of a window on the highway.