"Well, years ago, when I was at Harvard and working on the Lampoon, we would try and think of magazines we could do a parody of. And there was one magazine we always knew we couldn’t parody, which was the National Enquirer. If a magazine has, as its cover, 'Elvis Still Alive, Marries Alien and They Have a Baby That’s a Three-Speed Blender'—if that’s what the real magazine’s coming out with, you can’t do a comedic take on that. It’s very difficult, or I think impossible, to do. And I think Trump—if he were a magazine, it’s the National Enquirer. There’s a lot that’s so bombastic and so outrageous and so unprecedented that how do you—'Oh, I’ve got a great Trump impression, and I have him saying this.' Well, that’s not crazier than what really happened yesterday. So I don’t know how this is funny."
Quoted in
"Conan O’Brien Is Ready for the Oscars/The comedian and television host talks about the decline of late night, the death of Rob and Michele Reiner, and why he loves when things go wrong onstage" (The New Yorker).
In other words, Trump is already funny, so it's obtuse to build a joke on top of that.
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56 comments:
Like saying he is allowed to destroy a country and that the tarrif decision is an embarrassment to justices' families.
There are a few good Trump impersonators on TikTok who riff on his bombastic way of speaking. But that's pretty short-form schtick.
Trump walks into a bar with Conan O’Brien and Elvis……
Trump is already funnier.
Grok says, “ Trump strides in, hair perfect, says, “This place is tremendous, folks, the best bar, believe me.” Elvis nods, already humming “Hound Dog,” while Conan just stands there blinking like he accidentally wandered into a sitcom.
Trump orders “whatever the king wants—double,” slaps the bar like it owes him money. Elvis goes, “Thanks, Donnie, but I’ll take a bourbon… and maybe a peanut butter sandwich.” Conan mutters, “I’ll have water. And therapy.”
The bartender looks up. “Uh… you three together?”
Trump: “We’re not together—we’re winning. Huge.” Your turn—who buys first?
Weak try Grok.
Conan got yanked off the Tonight Show. If he were funny he could have kept the job
Readering said...
Like saying he is allowed to destroy a country ...
Just think of it as fundamental transformation.
So Conan is admitting that he isn't as funny as Alec Baldwin, or is saying that SNL sucks (or both)!
This is a cop out. I enjoy comedy about Trump, and comedians who are good it are hilarious. The thing is you have to remember that comedy is best when it's honest. You can't just do the strawman jokes where you make fun of a Trump that isn't real. Comedians will sometimes just do Trump being himself, and that's funny, because he's different, he's unpredictable, and he's bold.
Trump has been a challenge for a lot of people. I was clicking around on youtube last night, listening to some 70's songs and in the comment section for Simon and Garfunkel's "America", was this gem:
"people are still looking for america but trump is stopping them because he is racist"
A Democrat, no doubt.
This Trump hate is all the Dems got. So, so tiresome and predictable.
What are the Dems FOR other than illegal immigration, CAGW and continued cheating in elections.
I challenge the Dems here to lay out the Dem 2028 platform.
"You can't just do the strawman jokes where you make fun of a Trump that isn't real."
Of course not. That's the job of the New York Times.
I think Conan is the funniest of the late night guys, because he takes the most risks, and seems to want to avoid politics.
Why is there no female late night. It could be fun with the right lady.
Besides ferguson and gervais who is else genujnely fine
Genuinely finny
A look at the actual material of late night comedy tells you that Trump is almost the only President you can make fun of going back to Bush and Clinton. Biden himself was a hard-working comedy writer that nobody hired. I found him hilarious laughing until I cried.
Conan is funny? Must be an inside joke.
Carson and Leno were easy to laugh with because they were master observers, not judges, of human mis-steps and wacky stuff.
Late night TV went to hell when the only value of a laugh was to make an idealogical point.
Conan doesn't seem a good fit in either camp. Conan seems uncomfortable.
Let's face it: nobody is better at riffing on Trump than Trump himself.
Bag: “ Why is there no female late night. It could be fun with the right lady”
Joan Rivers of course set the standard. Former VJ Lisa Kennedy does quite well in one of the sidekick seats on Gutfeld; she’s ready for the big chair now. Kat Timpf is almost but not quite ready - she is great at conversation but for some reason has a problem with the teleprompter, even when she wrote the words on it. She had a few trial runs at the Fox News Saturday Night show that eventually went to Jimmy Failla, but was clearly not ready for non-prime-time.
On the left, I can’t think of a woman who would be good at late night. And that’s not sexist, because the lefty men aren’t good at it either. CC, JSM
Dennis miller was good in the 90s even in his anarchist curmudgeon phase
Dennis miller was good in the 90s even in his anarchist curmudgeon phase
Rita rudner had some great routines in the 90s
Shane Gillis was basically 'made' by a Trump bit about his father's going from a Trump hater to Trump voter and claiming it was all due to FNC. How does Conan talk about Trump humor without talking about clapter, the backbone of late night television?
I remember when Conan said Haiti was a beautiful vacation island while riots and other conflagrations were occurring.
Bumped by Jimmy Failla? That's gotta hurt.
Well she contracted cancer around that time
“ I had a Kazakh friend give me a chapka made of red fox”
Where the fox hat!
Mike D, that was Conan’s last good joke. Irony is effective here and there. Juxtapose a pale skinned weakling lauding Haiti, which is a shithole of violent blacks.
"In other words, Trump is already funny, so it's obtuse to build a joke on top of that."
The problem is that not all things "funny" are jokes. And not all jokes derive laughter as in "Why does a chicken coop have two doors? Because if it had four doors, it would be a sedan."
Trump's delivery technique is never funny either. Today, in response to the Supreme Court's 6 to 3 decison canceling Trump's authority to impose tariffs based on national emergency powers, the president said he was "ashamed" of some of the justices over the ruling and that they were "very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution." So he immediately imposed a additional tariff of 10% on all countries.
Trump has turned the comedians into comedy. Almost every day I watch a clip of some hapless comedian doing a mental silly walk. So serious, so rigid, so idiotic. And then sometimes I watch them awarding each other little glittering gold trophies for shows that are losing their owners millions of dollars because nobody watches them and everyone applauds wildly at each award. And at these awards often someone gets up and with awful earnestness, almost sweating, explains that he/she is more than funny; he/she is taking on the Nazis. And everyone there believes it. Yes, Jimmy Kimmel is just like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Just as brave about facing jail, torture and death? Speaking of stolen valor! It's disgusting but it's also humorous when it happens over and over. It's a kind of Three Stooges act - Kimmel, Colbert, Conan. Honestly, I think people will be doing imitations of 21C late night comedians for the next hundred years. Right now it's only our side that sees them as the really great fools they are but the day will come. And Trump has done the same for Dem politicians. He's turned them into slapstick comedy. You don''t have to make up jokes about them, you just have to watch them. For instance, AOC showing off her foreign policy expertise at Munich. Newsom telling East Europeans that terror stalks the streets of LA. The Europeans sending 15 soldiers to hold Greenland against Trump.
I don't care whether he's good or bad for comedy. I care that all the best people with all the right opinions screwed things up so badly that we need a President who doesn't care what the best people people say or think.
Oh come on Wildswan, I think Denmark sent 21 of their finest troopers to defend Greenland. A small town SWAT team could dispose of the 21 with very little effort.
Christopher B said...
Readering said...
Like saying he is allowed to destroy a country ...
Just think of it as fundamental transformation.
This just highlights the problem.
Humor requires more intelligence than most democrats have.
Before Trump's first presidency, most of the top standup comedians were liberal Democrats. Now, most of those same people are considered far right extremists by the DNC MSM machine because they go after woke idiocy for laughs. The late night hosts and SNL fear touching the truly mockable lampoonable ridiculous Libturd philosophy.
They have no sense of absurdity ferguson like the great dave allen didnt care about propriety
so,
NOW tell us why Biden (or Kammy (or ANY democrat)) was "bad for comedy"
i mean, SInce y'all NEVER did ANY jokes about ANY democrats;
THEY must have been bad for comedy too.. Right?
i mean, RIGHT? since y'all NEVER do ANY jokes about them?
So he immediately imposed a additional tariff of 10% on all countries.
The joke's on you, Buddy!
What did he say about the Reiner murders? I would guess that his lawyers have instructed him to say very little.
The Babylon Bee is able to do Trump comedy.
It's hard for an extremist to do Trump comedy in front of a lot of partisan haters. It's easier for the Leftist comedian to do the trite "look what he did now!" routine that isn't funny and is killing late night TV.
For four years, I was hearing dozens of Dan Quayle "jokes" every day. The only time I laughed was when IIRC Emo Phillips said he wanted to buy a vowel.
And yet there were no kamala jokes from any of these jesters
the left cannot laugh with/ or about him because they are steeped in nazi-like hatred of him.
I don't think that he's saying the Enquire is funny, I think he's saying it's ridiculous.
There is a local radio host name Ryan and he, on occasion, has a Trump impersonating comedian on his show.
This comedian sounds exactly like Trump. It fools folks.. In fact people would call in and ask "how did you manage to get Trump on your show?"
Anyway - what makes it funny is the guy just riffs on Trump and he does end up saying ridiculous stuff - because Trump does that too as we all now. and it is funny.
Leftists cannot laugh at Trump - because they are fueled by rage.
But mib had them as the real news
What is truly ridiculous and NOT at all funny - 4 criminal open border years of the most crooked lying fake-elected mob- chi com+soros--controlled preznit we we've experienced.
OK, I read it. Conan does a very good job of not taking the lefty bait from Remnick. In the intro paragraph: How will O’Brien find a way to provide a mental break for a weary nation?
GMAFB.
Then there's this, which Remnick doesn't follow up on (or it got edited out). He analogizes the network pressure to a NYC co-op HOA. Which I think is pretty good:
Now, there’s a different thing—there are comedians who, when they talk about Trump, quickly get very angry. And I’ve said this before, but I think it’s possible to surrender your best weapon. Your best weapon is to be funny. And if it just evolves into name-calling. . . . I mean, I am all for people trying. And, when there’s a really good joke about the President or the Administration, if there’s a joke about the right or the left and it’s a good one, I’m elated. I just think that in the current climate, things have gotten so stretched out—think about that Dalà melted watch—that it’s hard to find purchase.
Where does the network get involved?
There’s always some issues. I’ve been dealing with networks for most of my life. So there’ll be stuff. And then that’s when you roll up your sleeves and you start arguing back. And it can be—
Do you win?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can win. You can also lose.
But on what basis? Are there rules, or is it just human persuasion?
Certainly there are rules about what can be said and what can’t be said. The Academy has rules. I mean, everyone has rules.
Once you’ve lived in New York for a period of time, you come to this awareness that, oh, everything ultimately is a New York co-op. They have their rules. You can say, “Hey, but on this other awards show I got to do this.” Let’s say I’m living at—I’m going to make it up—I’m living at 172 West Eighty-ninth Street. They’ll say, “This is the Drake Building. And you live here at the Drake Building.”“Yes, yes I do. What I’d like to do is put in my kitchen window . . .”
“No, no, no, no, no. We don’t let people alter the windows here at the Drake.”
And you’ll say, “Oh, O.K. Well, it’s funny, when I lived over at the Macklemore . . .”
And they’ll say, “Yes, we know. That’s the Macklemore.” And suddenly—
The leftists of hollywood don't need a break when their crook(D) is installed at the helm...
these rich leftist actor a-holes don't give a crap about a dying nation. they live posh and untouchable.
Conan worked on The Wilton North Report (worst show on TV ever) and thought he was already famous.
The best Conan was when Norm McDonald was his guest.
Lately the best comedy I'm seeing is making fun of the leftist zeitgeist. Some of it unintentional.
Ricky Gervais, Norm MacDonald & Dennis Miller are/were all very good at lampooning politicians both left and right.
The late Don Rickles would have been a Great host for the Oscars!
I recall that comedians complained they couldn't do Obama either, and they didn't do Biden or Harris, for Some Reason. Obama's mother-in-law lived in the White House and he exaggerated his basketball career, which should have been fish in a barrel.
My take is that comedy is now mostly just meanness, and the supposed big names no longer know how to be funny. The funny people are now competing small-scale on the internet, and some will emerge.
“Conan! What is best in life?” “To lampoon your enemies, See them furious before you, And to hear the Karening of their women!”. CC, JSM
Althouse writes: In other words, Trump is already funny, so it's obtuse to build a joke on top of that.
This misses his point. He's making a point that humor/satire, which is a kind of meta commentary, often works by exaggeration--taking the subject's characteristics to extremes. But that method is often not available for those satirizing Trump, because he is already so extreme.
That doesn't mean Trump is funny. As Althouse's posts on Trump's comments about the Supreme Court show. They are "bombastic and so outrageous and so unprecedented" in just the way that O'Brien describes. But are they funny? Certainly Althouse doesn't think so.
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