What the Hell Are You Talking About, Vague?

The title of the sketch was inspired by a mondegreen of the 1990 song “Vogue” by Madonna.

The sketch pokes fun at journalists. The nodding pervasive throughout the sketch was inspired by the 1987 movie “Broadcast News.” In the movie, Arron Altman, just before he departs to Portland to take a news job, he tells Jane Craig that their colleague, Tom Grunick, faked crying in an interview with a date rape victim in order to boost ratings.As it turned out, there was only one camera assigned to the story, so the cameraman first filmed the interviewee answering questions, turned around and filmed Tom asking questions and crying, then Tom took the footage back to the studio and strategically spliced the two segments together to make it look like a continuous interview. So when we here at CoBaD see cuts to a journalist nodding silently like a sheep we can’t help to think that a similar sense of fakery is afoot.
Professor Blasé was inspired by Peter Cook’s “Experiences Down the Mine” sketch from “Beyond the Fringe.”

Professor Blasé: “Indeed, there are several merits to being boring. First of all, job security is literally guaranteed. Take the end of Chapter 13 of the world’s longest socialist pamphlet, Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle;” the scene where the women in the sausage-room stuffed sausage casings by hand and twisted them into links.” - It seems that whole novel sets up the last chapter of the book, which reads more like a very long socialist leaflet than a novel. At that point, Jurgis seems to have just been unceremoniously cast aside by the author; relegated to the role of a passive spectator. Mr. Sinclair’s “pamphlet” should have treated Jurgis better than that.

Voiceover: “Critics and readers nod in agreement! It’s got the country whiplashed, er, whipped up in a frenzy! It’s enigmatic! It’s nebulous! It’s cryptic! It’s Vague” – The magazine where everybody’s talking about what the hell you’re talking about. What the hell are you talking about, Vague?” –
Coincidentally, nebulous was Merriam-Webster’s word of the day for August 27, 2025.

Voiceover: "Vague Magazine - Your single source of pornographic photos and rambling manifestos outside Carl’s Langley office.”

Carl: “I told you, stop calling me a fed!”

Inspired by the rumor that the federal government is the biggest holder of porn and manufactured manifestos. They plant the porn on a person’s computer in order to get them to confess to a crime they didn't do or fink on somebody, and they plant a manifesto on a mass shooter’s Facebook page in order to stir up political unrest.

References:

Wikipedia. Broadcast News. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_News_(film)

Youtube.com. 10 October 2008. Experiences Down the Mine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofUZNynYXzM

————

Convulsions of Birth and Death (CoBaD) is a comedy sketch troupe founded in September, 2022 that posts skits on social media covering varied topics such as music, history, art, science, sports, literature and events encountered in everyday life. The title was inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (1849), an essay written as a protest against the U.S. government taking his “gift” (i.e., his taxes), and wasting it in ways in which he did not approve (e.g., war and slavery). CoBaD writes sketches in the spirit of Thoreau, but instead of strictly casting its nets outwards towards governments and figures of authority, it projects its protest inwards by taking a humorous, lightheaded look at humanity and specifically those who take the greatest gift of all, life, and senselessly and stupidly waste it on greed, narcissism, self-centeredness, petty-mindedness, arrogance, opportunism, power-grabbing, quid pro quo, the status quo, ulterior motives, and the most despicable waste of all, social media.