Can the Zika virus be funny?
Samantha Bee has lately been pondering possible comedic takes on the global health crisis. And while she’s not sure there is one, she does know there’s a point of view on the threat that’s unexplored by the current (read: male) crop of late-night hosts.
“It’s a huge crisis that really lands squarely in the laps of women,” she says on the Hell’s Kitchen set of her new TBS show “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.”
“When the government of a country puts the responsibility for spreading a disease and stopping that disease in the laps of pregnant women — and women who aspire to one day be pregnant — that’s a big topic of conversation,” she says. “If we chose to take that subject on, we would drill down in a way that no other show would.”
After 12 years flaunting her “lady balls” as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” the Canadian-American comedian is getting her own weekly half-hour series (premiering Monday at 10:30 p.m.) to satirize the news. Its “late-night” distinction aside, “Full Frontal” is more comedy show than talk show: The spartan set doesn’t have a desk and there won’t be celebrities stopping by to plug their latest project.
“I can’t really do that convincingly,” Bee says.
Instead, the show will aim to do one field piece per episode — the type of segment that Bee excelled at as a “Daily Show” correspondent (Republican National Conventions, child tobacco labor, women in combat). She has already traveled to Jordan for a piece on Syrian refugees getting resettled and has another in the works about Texas’ TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws.
“That [piece] would have been more difficult to do on the ‘Daily Show.’ It would have had to go through more filters,” she says. “What will make this a unique piece for our show is it will be very visceral and we will allow it to be so.”
For now, Bee is the sole star of “Full Frontal,” though she hopes to add correspondents in time. There is, however, a fair amount of “Daily Show” DNA in the crew: Executive producers Jo Miller and Miles Kahn both came with her from Comedy Central, and her husband, fellow ex-“Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones, also executive-produces.
“Full Frontal” also shares the same studio with HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” hosted by “Daily Show” veteran John Oliver (since each show only airs once a week, the sets will be broken down, pushed off and swapped after each episode).
“I’m so excited to share a space with him,” Bee says. “The main thing we responded to when we came in here was ‘Oh, it’s John’s space, we’ll be fine.’ It’s a good vibe.”