Bush making jokes at the Correspondent's dinner in 2004 about not being able to find WMD in Iraq while servicemen and women were risking their lives there: Funny.
Colbert making jokes at the Correspondent's dinner in 2006 about not being able to find WMD in Iraq while the president was in the same room: Not funny.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
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4 comments:
I was so proud of Colbert. Bush had to sit there and take it. He so deserved it. And it had to shake him, if just a little. I will forever be greatful! Thank you, Steven.
Did you see Colberts remarks after the event?
"I delivered the closing speech. Needless to say the audience could not contain its excitement. Very respectful silence. The crowd practically carried me out on their shoulders. Although I wasn't actually ready to leave."
I love how that guy from the Washington Post was all "Colbert wasn't funny and that's that."
You know, I don't find Carrot Top funny... but SOMEone does! Does that mean he's definitely "funny" or "not funny"? Just seemed like a weird thing for a journalist to say. Basically: "I didn't find him funny and therefore he's not. To anybody."
Or, to say, as I think the WaPo guy was, that he was insulting and inappropriate and therefore not funny.
Hello! Number one rule of comedy: be insulting and inappropriate.
I know someone who was there in the audience and said that although he agrees with Colbert's point of view, he just didn't think he was funny. Period.
So much depends upon the room. I think you can tell from watching the video that Colbert's timing is a little off. Also, many of those people don't know that he is playing a character, they don't know his schtick, and so they take a while to figure out what the deal is, and by then the vibe of the whole thing has just gone south and no one's going to laugh out loud at anything at that point.
Also, a large number of people in the audience were obviously taken aback. You can tell by their faces.
So it's conceivable that you and I laugh our asses off, but someone in the room says "not funny."
Like Stewart at the Oscars. I was in a huge group of friends, and we were all laughing really loudly, and we in fact created our own audience that overrode the reaction of audience in the theatre. I was really surprised to find out later that Stewart did not get a lot of laughs, and some people were convinced he bombed.
Comedy is subjective, sure.
So to the people in the room who didn't laugh at Colbert: either his delivery was off, his material was bad or wrong, or they just didn't feel comfortable enough to laugh. All of those reasons can be true.
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