Ricky Gervais isn't funny

There was a critic writing about cult films. He made a startling realization watching Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor. When the movie was released, people thought that Jerry was making fun of Dean Martin. But watch a few Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day telethons and you realize he was doing himself. Buddy Love was the other side of Lewis's own personality.

And now...you have Ricky Gervais. In The Office.

I thought it was rather cruel for a successful comic to make a TV show about an office worker who desperately wishes he were a comedian and imagines himself to be a comic genius. But looking at Gervais hosting the Golden Globe Awards, you realize that his character, David Brent, was Gervais himself.

You could probably make a pretty good joke about the fact that Robert Downey, Jr, had a serious drug problem and has been in jail. But simply stating that he's been in rehab and in jail is not a joke. You could make a joke about the rumors that Tom Cruise is gay, but simply saying he's gay isn't a joke.

And I didn't understand his "joke" about Justin Bieber. He said "The only way that he could have impregnated a girl was if he borrowed one of Martha Stewart's old turkey basters."

Why, specifically, Martha Stewart's turkey baster? And why couldn't Justin Bieber get a girl pregnant otherwise? I can think of any number of impediments that might render one incapable of impregnating a girl, but why attribute any of these to Justin Bieber? What is he referring to? What's the joke?

Gervais throws together some elements, says things that sound like jokes, and the shallow, dim-witted celebrities act like it's the funniest thing they've ever heard.