Left to right: Jayar Jackson, Brian Unger, Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian and Jimmy Dore.
The Young Turks is a radio and internet Talk Show hosted by Cenk Uygur (pronounced Jenk Yu-gur), who is (as you might expect) Turkish-American (he was born in Istanbul). The name is a play on the Young Turks of the late Ottoman Empire, and the figurative use of the term for the youngsters challenging the old guard (in this case, of the liberal establishment). Other co-hosts and helpers include Ben Mankiewicz, Jayar Jackson, Jesus Godoy, Dave Koller, Wes Clark Jr, Teresa Strausser, RJ Eskow, and Micheal Shure. Ana Kasparian (who is, somewhat amusingly, Armenian-American) co-hosts during the third hour, which focuses on pop culture instead of politics.On 21 September 2011, Cenk announced that he would be starting a television version of the show, The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur, on Current TV later in the year. The TV show will be discontinued as Al Jazeera (new owner of Current) reorganizes the channel into it a new network, but the online show will remain.Here is a character sheet for the hosts, though it's in need of Wiki Magic. Cenk Uygur now has his own entry here.
The Young Turks provides examples of:
Aerith and Bob: Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz, Dave Koller, Rick Strom, Jesus Godoy and... Steve Oh.
Ascended Extra: Rick Strom, initially just a producer that comments when asked, is now the host for TYT Sports.
John Fugelsang, formerly a Guest Star Party Member, is now the go-to host of "The Point". Others show up to guest-host, like Ana, Cenk and Jimmy Dore, but Fugelsang's the most frequent. In fact, he starting on October 5th, he now has his own show on Current.
Jimmy Dore, another Guest Star Party Member, has his own mini-show called "The Jimmy Dore Show".
Awesome McCoolname: Prometheus Maximus Uygur (nicknamed Pro), Cenk's infant son.
Bait-and-Switch Boss: Cenk used to view Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party, until leaked documents about Roger Ailes showed up, where it details exactly how the Republicans followed Ailes' lead.
With the various criticisms TYT gave Bush, you'd think he was the Big Bad, but in the grand scheme of things, they feel that Bush was more of The Brute by comparison.
Berserk Button: Ignorant Americans who believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 incur an aggressive response by both Cenk and Ben.
Cenk will also loose it if a religiously motivated decision kills someone. See here.
Big Bad: Not a person, but an entity - the Wall Street bankers, multinational corporations who bought Congress, the Supreme Court and the mainstream news media.
Internally, Tom Hanc, one of the TYT producers, has become something of a butt monkey for the rest of the crew. This is due apparently to his habit for self-promotion, Ana's competitive nature, and the fact he gets little-to-no air time to defend himself.
Hanc was supposed to participate in the arm wrestling competition. He broke his own wrist before they announced that a competition would be hosted. Self-elimination Epic Fail. They even put him in the womens' bracket.
Ana:"Maybe we could have a special Olympics for him."
Catch Phrase: "I denounce and reject you" or "I denounce and reject myself."
The Chamberlain: Subverted. This was Cenk's initial view of Barack Obama, but as time went by, particularly with videos like this, it's clear Cenk and Wes especially view Obama as less of an appeaser and more of a complicit conservative disguised as a Democrat.
Double Standard: Rape—Female on Male: Zig zagged here. Ana sticks up for the guy, Cenk makes fun of him for two and a half minutes, agrees that it's bad regardless of gender, expresses doubts regarding whether the man should have really sued, and ends saying he should get over it.
Dirty Coward: Their view of the Democrats as a whole.
The Ditz: Ana Kasparian once said she thought McCain was a German name.
Egregious: Not the show itself; Cenk is one of the few mainstream newscasters who uses this word fairly often.
Eldritch Abomination: Wall Street itself is considered as an amoral, money-making machine; everyone affiliated with it only cares about making profit.
Enemy Civil War: Currently, between the Wall Street-backed Republicans and the demagogic Tea Party.
Specific examples go into the 2011/2012 Republican primaries, where Mitt Romney gets challenged by Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul at different points.
Mr. Fanservice: A good portion of the guys aren't bad-looking themselves.
Even Evil Has Standards: Ben and Cenk explain that the Democrats are starting to learn that Obama is not on their side, up to losing their trust in him, because Obama's agreeing to everything with the Republicans, no matter how little he gets in return and regardless of the disastrous results thereof.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: Led a Crowning Moment of Funny for Cenk; in a story about a gang of thieves, Cenk pointed out how diverse the robbers were, calling them the All-American robbery team and said that it's "America coming together, to rob your ass."
Five-Bad Band: There are several groups they've portrayed as this throughout their run:
The Bush administration:
Bigger Bad: Paul Wolfowitz, the one who came up with the administrations' foreign policy on Iraq.
Big Bad: Rupert Murdoch, whose influence is felt throughout America, Britain and Australia.
Dragon-in-Chief: Roger Ailes. Murdoch might be the Bigger Bad, but Ailes has more power over Fox News day-to-day.
The Dragon: Bill O'Reilly . The highest-ranking host seen as second in command at Fox only behind Ailes.
The Brute: Sean Hannity. Most explicit and persistent criticism of their liberal/progressive ideology.
The Evil Genius: Ann Coulter. Who they usually refuse to talk about because they think she uses calculated ploys for attention. Fox contributor Karl Rove too.
The Dark Chick: Glenn Beck. Also Michelle Malkin and Greta Van Susteren. Beck was seen by them as the most unstable, emotional, and eccentric odd one out by advertisers, but his contract with Fox ended sometime in the first quarter of 2011.
Guest Star Party Member: Several, with Richard Escow, Wesley Clark (Jr.) and Jimmy Dore as the most recurring.
Five-Token Band: Let's see, a Turkish host, an Armenian-American female co-host, a black producer, a Mexican director, and a white guy. And occasionally Ben Mankiewicz shows up, who's Jewish. Recently they added Steve Oh, an Asian executive director who occasionally joins the debate.
Foreshadowing?: Ever noticed how the TYT Interviews stopped updating their videos as regularly as they have to their main channel? Come about a week or so later, and Cenk formally announces that he's recently left MSNBC.
Hatedom: Ana hates sports, but especially Football. When there was a Football game being aired, Ana actually fell asleep halfway through the game.
Ben hates the Miami Heat, but he's gotten over hating LeBron James in particular.
Michael Shure hates the NBA. He even prefers Hockey and Cycling to it, but he's never specified if he hates the NBA as an organization or if he hates the sport of basketball.
Hypocritical Humor: Intentionally invoked by Cenk here in order to make fun of and draw attention to the absurdity of the baseless claims that Liberals and Al Queada are working together that a Fox News correspondent makes.
They also take the time to praise a Fox News reporter who remains very professional after two women attempt to kiss him when he's in the middle of a live on-scene report here.
Really, Cenk and co make it a habit to point out any positive points people make, even if they don't like the people making them.
Jesus Was Way Cool: The show makes fun of religious conservative Christians all the time. However, Cenk isn't above claiming that Jesus himself was a Socialist. To be fair, this was in response to a Republican claiming that Socialism was "unbiblical" during a speech. Basically, he also claims God for his side.
Karma Houdini: Many examples, from murderers (like the father and grandfather who buried their daughter/granddaughter just for talking to boys), to politicians and corporations.
Large Ham: Cenk. Especially when he's parodying conservatives.
Man Behind the Man: Several multinational corporations for nearly every single politician.
Dick Cheney for George W. Bush, who acted as the Vice President.
Rahm Emanuel and Timothy Geithner for Barack Obama, the former Chief of Staff and current Secretary of Treasury.
Charles and David Koch for most freshman House Republicans, including Scott Walker, Rick Snyder and John Kasich.
Played with for Rush Limbaugh; at the very least, he certainly knows how to intimidate Republican-aligned politicians enough to keep them in line.
Roger Ailes for every Republican president since Richard Nixon. TYT does a good job in rationalizing why, too.
Cenk:"There's always somebody strong, within the White House, who influences the President more than other people do, and you can always tell by the decisions that are made. By the directions that they go. The way they play politics."
The Merch: Mind your business looking up videos on Youtube. Some video by The Young Turks will be likely to show up sooner or later even if you don't look them up. They have tens of thousands of videos covering almost everything.
Name's the Same: Steve Oh...oh he's not the same person as Steve O.
Obstructive Bureaucrat: This is the mildest way of explaining how TYT views the Republican Party as a whole.
Oh Crap: Cenk and co have a collective one when talking about the growing popularity of Greece's Golden Dawn party, a party of Fascist neo-nazis. They bring up several intelligent points and studies on the dangers of purists and fascism, especially how they often rise in power during times of economic strife and can potentially lead to years of problems.
Only In Florida: Often. To the point where Cenk is surprised if a strange occurrence didn't happen in Florida.
The Plan: They have their own, called Wolf-Pac, which is supposed to serve as a counter to the corruptible influence of money in politics.
Papa Wolf: Cenk. He's a father, and goes into Tranquil Fury whenever they cover a story that involves stupid parents endangering their children.
The Rival: Mitt Romney garnered a lot of these during the 2011/2012 Republican primary - Rick Perry was his most vitriolic opponent, while Newt Gingrich took over as the neo-conservative challenger. The one who gave him the hardest run and was the most competitive to him was Rick Santorum.
Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Cenk quit his job at MSNBC after they offered him a smaller position in the company at twice his pay despite the fact that he beatFox News ratings in the young demographic.
Spin-Off: They still have TYT as their main channel, but they've made several other channels to fill up the other topics of the day.
TYT Underground are behind-the-scenes videos of what the TYT members are doing just before they actually report the news. Currently run by Jesus Godoy; placed on hold until further notice.
TYT Shows is a mini-channel that has more detailed commentary and analysis on news, politics and entertainment. Noted for having spin-offs in and of itself.
TYT Now, hosted by Tina Dupuy and Tim Mihalsky. Discontinued in favor of twenTYTwelve. Ran from May to August 2011.
Reality Bytes Back, celebrity news by Misty Kingma and Jacki Bray. Discontinued in favor of twenTYTwelve. Ran from May to July 2011.
The WMB Show, where Wesley Clark, Michael Shure and Ben Mankiewicz voice their own personal segments on news. Discontinued since Wes was Put on a Bus. Ran from May to June 2011.
Launched and hosted by Michael Shure is a mini-segment called twenTYTwelve, which focuses on covering the primaries, caucuses, debates and conventions for the upcoming election.
TYT University has user-submitted videos about college, hosted by Ana Kasparian.
The Top Vlog are official behind-the-scenes footage of TYT, run by Jesus Godoy.
The Point features user-submitted videos focusing on a specific topic, which the panel discusses and elaborates upon. Its host switches around a lot, but one in particular would be John Fugelsang.
Ben:"I'm rooting for a German; that's how much I hate the Heat."
Another showed up in this video. For a bit of backstory, Ana hosts her own mini-channel called TYT University. Rick is a co-host for TYT Sports. Ana is notorious for her hatred of sports (there was a brief shot of her sleeping during a football game). When Ana took a jab at Rick, Cenk took the time to defend Rick, by pointing out that TYT Sports was rated the number two TYT channel on their website. Especially stings since TYT University has actually been on longer than TYT Sports.
Tournament Arc: TYT Sports is hosting arm-wrestling matches with the crew, minus Richard Eskow, Wesley Clark, Jimmy Dore, Brian Unger, Tina Dupuy and Jackie Bray.
of the late Ottoman Empire, and the figurative use of the term for the youngsters challenging the old guard (in this case, of the liberal establishment). Other co-hosts and helpers include Ben Mankiewicz, Jayar Jackson, Jesus Godoy, Dave Koller, Wes Clark Jr, Teresa Strausser, RJ Eskow, and Micheal Shure. Ana Kasparian (who is, somewhat amusingly, Armenian-American) co-hosts during the third hour, which focuses on pop culture instead of politics.On 21 September 2011, Cenk announced that he would be starting a television version of the show, The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur, on Current TV later in the year. The TV show will be discontinued as Al Jazeera (new owner of Current) reorganizes the channel into it a new network, but the online show will remain.Here is a character sheet for the hosts, though it's in need of Wiki Magic. Cenk Uygur now has his own entry here.
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