When Johnny Carson bombed he immediately bounced back.
Sure, we’d groan at Carson’s clunkers. He’d quickly pivot to a self-deprecating aside, trying hard to make it right.
It often worked. Why?
Even the best comedians know every joke doesn’t kill. It’s how you bounce back that matters. Carson, the undisputed King of Late Night TV, wouldn’t stop until he made us laugh.
Today’s late-night comedians ignore that comic code. Comedy isn’t first and foremost on the agenda in the Trump era. It’s lectures, virtue signaling and sharing the “approved” political messaging.
Above all, it’s thinking the host is better than us. Smarter. Wiser.
John Oliver’s reaction to Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday proved it. He admitted he wasn’t in a “funny” mood, as if every comedian’s life is bliss seconds before he or she hits the stage.
Trump’s win has John Oliver raging at Hello Kitty. #LastWeekTonight pic.twitter.com/fexr1p2SQH
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) November 11, 2024
The “Last Week Tonight” host couldn’t even savor silly memes following Tuesday’s electoral blowout.
“Hey, Hello Kitty — not f***ing now,” Oliver said. “I would love to tell you what I’m looking forward to, but I cannot seem to find ‘drinking my lights out and [having] some grief mac and cheese’ on your stupid puzzle. Get the f*** out of here.”
Oliver was just warming up.
“I am mad for trans people who’ve been threatened. I’m disgusted at the prospect of mass deportation. I’m furious at Biden for not dropping out earlier, and that the egos and inaction of two men [Trump and Biden] older than credit cards themselves have led us to this point. I’m mad that women have to hear ‘your body, my choice’ from right-wing dipshits. I’m mad that Elon Musk is apparently sitting in on meetings with the president of Ukraine. I’m mad about the myriad of damage Trump will do that cannot easily be undone like setting back efforts to fight climate change and appointing more Supreme Court justices. And I’m mad at the prospect of four more years of people saying, ‘So is your job like so much easier with Trump as president?’ No, it is not! No, it f***ing isn’t! F*** you so much!”
Profanity. Anger. Rage. Insults. But no comedy. Not a whiff of a joke in that screed.
For late-night comedians, Trump’s victory was akin to 9/11, one of those cultural moments when it’s hard to find anything funny in life. Ironically, late-night hosts walked the country back from the emotional abyss after the actual 9/11, finding the balance between mourning and mirth.
That was then.
Now, we have comedians crying because they didn’t like the election results.
Jimmy Kimmel held back tears over Trump’s victory. He bought all the Fake News about Trump, and he continued it by attempting to scare his viewers into thinking Trump 2.0 would live up to the far-Left hype.
Except we’ve already had four years of a Trump presidency and he proved to be the worst Hitler ever.
Kimmel even suggested Trump 2.0 would be bad for free speech, ignoring how Trump had aligned himself a free-speech warrior during his campaign. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, his release of the Twitter Files and his willingness to allow more views on the digital platform proved his First Amendment bona fides.
Kimmel couldn’t see all of the above through his tears. His opening sketch was even worse.
He considered leaving the country but stayed because we need his brand of truth-telling in a second Trump term. It proved sickeningly self-important, but hardly funny.
Stephen Colbert, the gold standard for late-night Clapter, treated Trump’s win with the solemnity of a dear friend’s passing.
“Well, f***. It happened, again…After a bizarre and vicious campaign fueled by a desperate need not to go to jail, Donald Trump has won the 2024 election.”
At least Colbert had the decency to crack wise. A little.
“Now as a late-night host, people often say to me, ‘Come on, part of you has gotta want Trump to win because he gives you so much material to work with’ … No. No one tells the guy who cleans the bathroom, ‘Wow, you must love it when someone has explosive diarrhea, there’s so much material for you to work with!’
It didn’t last long.
“What we do know is that we are going to be governed by a monstrous child surrounded by cowards and grifters, and my brain keeps pumping out an unlimited supply of ramifications. It’s really hard to see a bright side here.”
“Saturday Night Live” trashed what was left of its legacy in 2016 by publicly mourning Hillary Clinton’s loss. Over the weekend, the show didn’t sink to those levels. Its cold-open sketch still assumes more than half the country chose the wrong person to lead the country.
How arrogant.
The sketch offers a few smiles, but the setup is as grim as what Colbert and co. delivered regarding the election.
The only late-night host to understand the assignment? Bill Maher.
The “Real Time with Bill Maher” host hates Trump as much as any of his peers. Maybe more.
He still understood the need to riff on the political realities before us. He mixed political observations with humor, which aligns with his show’s purpose. It’s not a standard late-night showcase. Instead, it’s an amalgam of jokes and headlines.
He also shared something his peers forgot. Humility.
“You’re not going to drag me into Trump Derangement Syndrome, it’s not deranged to be upset and worried about the real things, like, he could be a fascist, … but if you’re going to think I’m going to chase every rabbit down the hole…for the next four years, you’re wrong.”
“I did this once. I’m not going to do it again. That’s who he is. If he talks about Arnold Palmer’s d*** or he makes a — or he says a bad word or says something that everybody thinks, like there are s***hole countries, I’m not going to lose my s*** about it, I’m just not, because that is deranged. That’s who he is.”
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