Larry Wilmore to host White House Correspondents' Dinner next April

Just announced - I read it in the NYTimes behind their paywall.

This should be interesting. Following the footsteps of his post-TDR predecessor, Stephen Colbert, who gave his legendarily “Balls-o-Licious” (per Jon Stewart) skewering of George W. Bush with 43 about 10 feet away.

Wilmore has not been holding back at all with his slams of Republican candidates and the GOP in general. He has gotten more direct and profane in his disgust as there have been mass shootings and violence against blacks caught on video tape.

I’m excited. Wilmore is currently my favorite commentator on the news. I like that his perspective is very different from my own – I learn more from watching him than I do from watching people who are more similar to me. It will be cool to see him with President Obama.

Anybody watching this?

Obama did pretty well–maybe not as good as in some years past, but still several good zingers.

But, man, Wilmore is bombing.

Well yeah, he DESTROYED the people in the room.

He was playing to the YouTube crowd; not the room

Well, forget the people in the room. I didn’t think he was very funny. And I have no love for a lot of the people he targeted.

Thought I’d watch this as I’m holidaying in America. Obama did a good job as ever, but it can’t be easy for any comedian to follow such a charming and natural public speaker. I’ve seen that Larry Wilmore on the Daily Show a few years ago and I suppose those jokes about race which he delivers in a faux-amateur manner, leaving the punchline hanging awkwardly in the air must be his style. Don’t think it worked well here though.

Eh, other WHCD comedians have done the “insult comic” thing on the press and gotten plenty of laughs*. Wilmore just isn’t really good at it, most of his insults were pretty stale and the jokes predictable. “Print media is dead, amirite…?”, etc.

His bit in the beginning, before he started in with the insults was pretty funny, though. I think the rest would’ve been better if he didn’t try to be edgy for edginess’s sake.
*(every year people act like the comedian really showed those nasty politicians and press people. But of course, its the Press Assoc, that chooses and hires the comedian every year. They aren’t being repeatedly blind-sided by this kinda thing. They obviously enjoy the psuedo comedy-roast aspect of the dinner.)

This was an audience of the most hated and hateable people in the country. Doesn’t surprise me they have no sense of humor. What a bunch of self-deluded liberal elites. I usually don’t find Wilmore that funny, but I laughed quite a bit here.

“Liberal elites”? I thought the attendees were from across the spectrum. Gingrich and Priebus were there I know.

Ok there were some token “center elites”.

I should have just said “Clinton supporters”. Every time Wilmore skewered Hillary, you could hear the sound of 1,000 assholes clamping shut.

I watched Obama, who was ok, and Wilmore’s speeches. By far the loudest applause was when Obama hinted at a Clinton victory.

I did like a few of his digs, including some that the audience booed:

“Speaking of drones, how is Wolf Blitzer still on the air? Come on Wolf! How about asking a follow up question?”

But overall, many more fell flat than hit the mark. His delivery was awful. He appeared very nervous. He kept laughing at his own jokes and trying to appeal to the audience that he really was being funny. Not a good sign. When Colbert did the WHCD several years ago he hit just as hard and got a similar cold response from the room, but he delivered his set with confidence and style and I was laughing my ass off.

Yeah Colbert’s was legendary.

Obama’s routine was better-written and delivered more skillfully. His jokes didn’t aim as low, and were more clever overall. The ‘steak or fish’ joke was great, as was the Goldman-Sachs speech reference. I didn’t think the Obama-Boehner video was terribly funny, but it was nice to see a little bipartisanship for the sake of fun.

Yea, I don’t think Wilmore’s affable stage persona really lends itself to the more mean-spirited humor he was trying for here. He comes off too forced and nervous, and gives the impression his heart wasn’t really into writing the jokes. On his show, he still insults people, but in a way that makes it sound like he’s confused or exasperated, rather than just straight insults.

As I said, I thought the material at the beginning and end, when he was joking around with Obama, was pretty funny. He would’ve been better off sticking with that sort of material.

Obama as always is weirdly good at these. They should hire him to come back as the comedian/host for the next one.

It will never be matched. The gold standard for an event like this.

He should replace Trevor Noah as host of TDS when his current gig ends.

While the home viewers liked it a lot, there was a lot of grumpiness by the live audience. Some of his best jokes (IMHO) barely got a laugh.

This is a hard crowd for certain types of comics. The more the comic is into sucking up to the crowd, the better he/she will do. But those folk usually leave the home viewers cold.

I don’t think Wilmore tried to aim his bit to fit both groups and ended up missing both.

Did you see Don Lemon give Wilmore the finger?

Well, it seemed like he was bombing with the bunch of self-righteous assholes that he was roasting. That’s completely fine with me. I thought plenty of his jokes were not only pretty funny, but also spot on in terms of their observations.

Also, earlier in the week, Wilmore noted that it’s hard, in that room, to hear audience feedback, so you just have to plow on and assume that you’re doing great. I wonder if the same sort of thing applies to the audio recording of the speech, because when the camera looked out over the audience, the number of visible smiles and laughs seemed to contradict, at least a bit, the boos that were caught by the microphones.

Anyway, whether that’s the case or not, it’s good to see those media figures, who all accord themselves so much importance, even as they continue to contribute to the debasement of the national political discourse, get some well-deserved pokes in the eye.

At the time Colbert thought he had bombed because the feedback from the room was so cold. And he was nervous and awkward throughout because the lack of response kept throwing his timing off. I think he was as surprised as anyone that the tape got such a good aftermath.

Wilmore’s problem wasn’t nervousness. His jokes were awful and they kept getting the response they deserved. He just couldn’t believe how badly he was bombing. He did worse than Joel McHale, and McHale was terrible. Obama’s jokes were far more sophisticated.

The reaction to Hillary was simple. Every person in the room knows she’s going to be the next president. They’ve known for a year or more that she’s going to be the next president. If Jeb Bush was winning the race and had been for a year, they’d have reacted the same way. Heck, if anyone in that room thought Trump would be the next president they’d have booed Obama off the stage. They’re presidentotropic.