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The Power of “Hindsight”

PHILADELPHIA — Sunday afternoons are easier for Damian Muziani after football season ends. That is usually when he is culling journalistic minefields for stories to tweak for delivery to his viewership of Hindsight 2021, a “Savage Weekly Capsule” of witty writing and wacky logic. Muziani has a lot to say, but don’t try to put him in the corner. “I don’t like taking sides, and will play “Devil’s Advocate” to spite myself more often than not.” His reference is to a refusal to commit to a political stance or party, symbolized in the Hindsight 2021 logo of a pair of eyes, one red and the other blue. “I’m more likely to take a stand against specific members of the media or celebrities for either lazy journalism or outright hypocrisy. But it's done more for humor than to castigate.” Such is life for Muziani, 53, a late-blooming actor and host who had gotten by on survival jobs in telemarketing while as a member of Mensa, hoping and working towards a better life since the Bush Administration. The first Bush Administration. After watching other middle-aged comics take matters into their own hands, such as that of Sarah Cooper, the Trump-miming Tik-Tok sensation who became a household name seemingly overnight, Muziani decided to focus on what he does best: be funny. “I worked with Sarah on about a half-dozen commercials a decade ago, at the time we were both trying to find ways to share our talents with the world. She was struggling in comedy clubs and wrote a book that didn’t find a real audience at first. I was doing physical comedy, local TV hosting, and sports broadcasting. The difference between us is that Sarah had been pushing her brand all along until finally it got noticed. I didn’t really start pushing mine until Hindsight came along.” That push began with a hosting audition to cover the 2020 presidential election in October of last year. The casting company wanted someone to cut and paste news headlines and riff on them. “I thought it would be a great fit for me,” relates Muziani, “but they wanted this cantankerous old-school editor-type, who sits at his messy desk all night in frumpy clothes with a bottle of whiskey. I’m more of a class clown, 80’s David Letterman-type.” What Muziani submitted on a tape to producers was, in essence, a pre-cursor to Hindsight 2021. Talk Soup meets Weekend Update, with a twist; sometimes Muziani would take a real story and embellish a new ending, under a lead-in of “sources say” or “we believe”, so as to not be libelous. “It's a trick that many members of the media use on a regular basis, either to hide a political affiliation, personal vendetta or to fulfill a payola-type agreement. For the most part, no one can force a reporter’s hand to reveal their sources or true motivations and in the meantime, public sentiment gets affected by misinformation. Hindsight takes that to a comic level, but in doing so the hope is to make viewers aware of the partisan power that is fighting for their approval every day, in print, online, and on television.” Needless to say, Muziani did not land the job, but the experience awoke a desire to try again, so he did. “Hindsight 20/20 was born in October of last year, and after a few weeks, I decided to carry it into the new year as Hindsight 2021. We’ve been steadily adding viewers ever since.” Hindsight 2021 can be found on YouTube at www.youtube.com/Hindsight2021 and is currently also broadcasted on the DB&A Television Network via Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple+ every Monday. The three-minute program is written, edited, and hosted by Damian Muziani.
Damian Muziani

Damian Muziani

4 Min Read

Weekly news-comedy capsule is opening eyes.

Damian Muziani is the host of Hindsight 2021.

PHILADELPHIA — Sunday afternoons are easier for Damian Muziani after football season ends. That is usually when he is culling journalistic minefields for stories to tweak for delivery to his viewership of Hindsight 2021, a “Savage Weekly Capsule” of witty writing and wacky logic. Muziani has a lot to say, but don’t try to put him in the corner. “I don’t like taking sides, and will play “Devil’s Advocate” to spite myself more often than not.”
His reference is to a refusal to commit to a political stance or party, symbolized in the Hindsight 2021 logo of a pair of eyes, one red and the other blue. “I’m more likely to take a stand against specific members of the media or celebrities for either lazy journalism or outright hypocrisy. But it’s done more for humor than to castigate.”
Such is life for Muziani, 53, a late-blooming actor and host who had gotten by on survival jobs in telemarketing while as a member of Mensa, hoping and working towards a better life since the Bush Administration. The first Bush Administration. After watching other middle-aged comics take matters into their own hands, such as that of Sarah Cooper, the Trump-miming Tik-Tok sensation who became a household name seemingly overnight, Muziani decided to focus on what he does best: be funny. “I worked with Sarah on about a half-dozen commercials a decade ago, at the time we were both trying to find ways to share our talents with the world. She was struggling in comedy clubs and wrote a book that didn’t find a real audience at first. I was doing physical comedy, local TV hosting, and sports broadcasting. The difference between us is that Sarah had been pushing her brand all along until finally it got noticed. I didn’t really start pushing mine until Hindsight came along.”
That push began with a hosting audition to cover the 2020 presidential election in October of last year. The casting company wanted someone to cut and paste news headlines and riff on them. “I thought it would be a great fit for me,” relates Muziani, “but they wanted this cantankerous old-school editor-type, who sits at his messy desk all night in frumpy clothes with a bottle of whiskey. I’m more of a class clown, 80’s David Letterman-type.” What Muziani submitted on a tape to producers was, in essence, a pre-cursor to Hindsight 2021. Talk Soup meets Weekend Update, with a twist; sometimes Muziani would take a real story and embellish a new ending, under a lead-in of “sources say” or “we believe”, so as to not be libelous. “It’s a trick that many members of the media use on a regular basis, either to hide a political affiliation, personal vendetta or to fulfill a payola-type agreement. For the most part, no one can force a reporter’s hand to reveal their sources or true motivations and in the meantime, public sentiment gets affected by misinformation. Hindsight takes that to a comic level, but in doing so the hope is to make viewers aware of the partisan power that is fighting for their approval every day, in print, online, and on television.”
Needless to say, Muziani did not land the job, but the experience awoke a desire to try again, so he did. “Hindsight 20/20 was born in October of last year, and after a few weeks, I decided to carry it into the new year as Hindsight 2021. We’ve been steadily adding viewers ever since.”
Hindsight 2021 can be found on YouTube at www.youtube.com/Hindsight2021 and is currently also broadcasted on the DB&A Television Network via Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple+ every Monday. The three-minute program is written, edited, and hosted by Damian Muziani.