It's just a matter of your particular sense of humor, I guess. The Office brings out extremes -- people either love it or hate it. I'm one of the former; it's probably my favorite TV show these days.
I call it cringe humor. It makes you cringe in embarrassment for the characters, yet that's exactly what's funny. Everybody on the show is hilarious, often in a really subtle deadpan way. Steve Carell's character is so annoying and buffoonish and insensitive and clueless and self-centered and un-PC and unwittingly sexist and racist and cowardly and obnoxious and, yes, smug that you laugh at him. Not with him, at him.
Unlike, say, Earl and Randy, who are buffoonish and clueless but are also cute and loveable, Carell's character is basically repulsive. Yet there's also this tiny little grain of dorky vulnerability and well-meaningness that makes you not entirely hate him.
In last night's show, for example, I loved when he was giving the filmmakers (for those who haven't seen it, the premise of the show is that it's a documentary being filmed by an unseen camera guy and interviewer) a know-it-allish tour around Manhattan, boasting about what a great city it is and how at home he feels there, and every single thing he said about the city was incorrect.
Or I keep repeating the line from a couple of weeks ago, when he was asked who his heroes are, and his reply (after a long perplexed pause) was, "Well, first of course there's Bob Hope. And then, well ... Abraham Lincoln. And, let's see ... oh, OK, Bono. And then, um, God, God would be fourth. They've all done so much for the world."
I just love that show. I laugh at almost every line. I like all the other characters, too. I'm always sad when it's over. (I like Earl, too -- the two shows complement each other really well.)
I didn't see "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." But the new movie that he's in, "Little Miss Sunshine," is getting great reviews.
As for the Daily Show, I like everybody on that, too, and Jon Stewart is one of my favorite people alive.
OK, now it's somebody's turn to explain to me the appeal of Adam Sandler. (And, true confessions: I'm not even a huge fan of Will Ferrell, though his new movie is supposed to be good, too.)
