Sacha Baron Cohen's new show Who Is America? debuted on US channel Showtime on Sunday night, and the aftermath was immediate and intense.
Across the episode, Cohen played a number of characters, including Dr. Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr. Ph.D., a man confined to a wheelchair by choice (to conserve his energy) and wants to discuss health-care with Bernie Sanders, as well as an ex-con artist who shows his pieces to a gallery owner, revealing that they were painted with feces and semen "extracted from his cellmates".
But the biggest attention grabber was Israeli gun advocate Col. Errad Morad, who wants to get guns into the hands of young school children in order to protect themselves, in a movement called "Kinderguardians".
In the segment, Morad talks to a number of politicians about his idea, and there is an overwhelming amount of support behind the potential project, and he convinces a lot of them to take part in a video to express that support, which includes them reading lines like:
"In less than a month, your children can evolve from a first grader... to a first grenader."
"Toddlers are pure, uncorrupted by fake news or homosexuality, they don't worry about shooting a mentally deranged gunman. They'll just do it."
"It has been scientifically proven that 5-year-olds have elevated levels of a pheromone known as Blink-182, produced by the part of the liver known as the Rita Ora, and this allows nerve reflexes to travel along the Cardi B neural pathway to the Wiz Khalifa 40% faster, saving time and saving lives."
It also features a politician joining Cohen in a How-To video which shows young kids how to reload and shoot their new weapons, which have been given cute and cuddly makeovers.
Veering further away from the likes of Borat and closer to the kind of comedy you'd see from Brass Eye, it truly is shocking to behold. The first episode will premiere on Channel 4 tonight (Monday 16 July) at 10pm, and you can check out the extended clip below:
Clip via SHOWTIME
