"Is that a racial stereotype I’m not aware of, that Hispanics are good at surviving long falls? Although for a man who started out labeling Hispanics as murderers and rapists, to end up at 'bouncy'...."

Said Jordan Klepper, who, I guess is a comedian, quoted in "Late Night Is Stunned by Trump’s New Stereotype/The president told attendees celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month at the White House to watch their step while touring the unfinished ballroom: 'Only a Hispanic could survive that fall'" (NYT).

Yes, I see, he's on "The Daily Show." Okay, then: comedy. How do you do comedy on top of a Trump statement that is already completely weird? 

Seth Meyer also had a go at it. He tried: "You’ve gotta be a platinum level racist to come out with stereotypes no one has ever heard before." And: "'Only a Hispanic could survive that fall'? Are you thinking of cats?"

If it were your job to write a joke based on "Only a Hispanic could survive that fall," what would you say. For the record, I think Trump's "joke" is racist. It's like a comment based on the notion that black people have a special ability to toil in the hot sun. The idea is that they're physically adapted to a job they are stereotyped as doing. 

Minor matters that are still on the President's agenda.

He'll definitely be finding out. You'd think other matters might come up and rank higher, leaving no time to be spent on the relationship between NBC and Seth Meyers. But no. He'll definitely be finding out.

In search of support, Joe Biden goes on the Seth Meyers talk show.

Last night:

The NYT collects late-night TV-talk-show jokes about Trump's unannounced visit to Walter Reed hospital for what was said to be "phase 1" of his annual physical.

Here's the link to the NYT. I'll just put the jokes in the order that I think they're any good (and I'll leave it to you to determine if I've put this best to worst or worst to best):

“Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham later explained that Trump decided to get parts of his physical done early because he had a ‘free weekend in Washington.’ O.K., that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. [Imitating Trump] ‘Hmm, let’s see, I’ve got the day off. I could spend it with my children — not really my thing. Uh, with my wife? No, she hates me. Uh, my friends? All in jail. Uh, tell you what: I’ll just go to the hospital and have them stick me with needles, just to feel something.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT

“Phase 1 was this weekend, Phase 2 is next — was this a physical or a kitchen remodel?” — JIMMY KIMMEL

Seth Meyers has an alternative ending for that Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad.

Sharp and funny, with what Meyers must hope is a politically correct degree of pain.

I wrote a lot about the Pepsi ad yesterday — here — and this parody only underscores my commitment to the viral video theory (that is, Pepsi didn't blunder, but meant to set the social media machine in motion).

One thing to consider is that the ad was made in-house:

The ad was produced by Pepsi’s in-house team, Creators League Studio. If there was ever an argument to be made by outside advertising agencies, this is it. I can imagine many agencies fine tuning their pitches right now, adding a mention that by employing them they will never have to deal with the kind of blowback Pepsi is dealing with today.

So maybe in-house Pepsi people are naive... or so the outside agencies will be saying as they pursue self-interest scaring clients out of taking advertising work in house.

The ad is long at 2:40, which means, mercifully, Pepsi [never had a plan to spend] any money broadcasting it (I assume). It was meant to be a viral piece of video – in that they succeeded.

That is, we know by the length of the video that it wasn't designed to be placed in media, and the idea had to be that people would play and pass along the ad, and that definitely worked and is still working.

"Today Trump called these new reports 'fake news.' So despite an incredibly short run, I think it is time to retire that term."

"It used to be one thing, but now everyone is using it for everything. 'Fake news' as a term is busted."

Said Seth Meyers (of "Late Night with Seth Meyers"), in a sound clip played on Rush Limbaugh's show today.  Limbaugh lit into Meyers:

Let me tell you what’s busted. What’s busted is the left’s attempted exclusive use of it to describe me, to describe Fox News, to describe conservative media anywhere. They set up the term “fake news” to discredit and impugn anybody not themselves....

And it’s backfired on ’em, because now the president-elect has called them fake news. And that’s why they’re banning it because... it’s boomeranged on ’em and they are the ones now accused of in the public mind of broadcasting, harboring, reporting fake news.

So of course they want to get rid of it...

More Jerry Seinfeld complaining about how political correctness is getting in the way of comedy.

Watch the clip, because Seinfeld quotes are best when heard (and, in fact, the audience laughs at many lines that would not read as humor at all):



Seinfeld had a joke about the way people scroll through their cellphones like "a gay French king" — a joke with a very funny gesture, but maybe audiences are indicating that they're not going to accept that kind of foolery anymore: "I could imagine a time where people say, ‘Well, that’s offensive to suggest that a gay person moves their hands in a flourishing motion and you now need to apologize.’ I mean, there’s a creepy PC thing out there that really bothers me."

The other guy on the show — the Seth Meyers show — is New Yorker editor David Remnick, and he lets on that he recently rejected an idea for a New Yorker cover that played on the Vanity Fair’s Caitlyn Jenner cover. Seinfeld — like any ordinary person — wanted to know what the idea was, and Remnick wouldn't tell. And then Meyers follows on: No jokes about Caitlyn Jenner. Not yet, at least. Jenner somehow won entitlement to a circle of seriousness. Seinfeld doesn't like it, but he lets Remnick and Meyers off the hook, seemingly on the theory that eventually Jenner will be mockable.

ADDED: I'm trying to guess what the rejected New Yorker cover was. (I think Remnick called is a "misfire.") I'm thinking it was putting somebody else in the same costume and pose used for Jenner. Maybe Obama? Lindsey Graham? Or maybe flipping it and showing a woman — Hillary is the most obvious choice — wearing clothing that is as masculine as Jenner's satin bathing suit was feminine and striking a pose that is as masculine as Jenner's twisty cringe was feminine.

AND: My proposal is to show Hillary's people — desperate and furious — looking at the Jenner cover and trying to outfit and pose Hillary like this:



But get rid of the cigarette. Replace that with... oh, what can we replace that with?... A carrot!