And C-SPAN’s ratings would go through the roof.
No, I don’t find him funny, either. But after reading up on him a bit, I can only feel sorry for the guy
- He was named comedy star of the year by the American Guild of Variety Artists in 1974. This guy is 33 years past his peak.
- He was a regular on Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roasts and the Julie Andrews hour. That’s the peer group he comes from. Almost everyone active from that time period is dead or gone to pasture.
- He’ll be 69 this year! He has the same sense of humor you’d expect from your grandfather, because he *is * somebody’s grandfather!
- He’s so out of touch, he hasn’t even updated his web site to mention his White House appearance: http://www.richlittle.com/
- He’s active in a lot of charities. He reached one of the highest levels you can reach as a boy scout, fer crying out loud
- He appeared in an episode of Futurama, so he can’t be all bad.
I don’t know what museum lent Rich Little out for this event, but it’s hardly Little’s fault for being what he is. The fact that the Bush administration chose him says a lot more about them than Little.
In retrospect, they do deserve a belated pat on the back for having the guts to go with Colbert last year. It’s rare that any correspondent’s dinner has had a comedian as dangerous as Colbert. In fact, I can’t think of any.
Not to mention he was the featured entertainment at the Correspondents Dinner in 1984:
So it’s all Bonzo’s fault.
I don’t think the administration chooses the speakers. The White House Correspondants’ Association hosts the event; I assume the decisions are up to the directors and their planning board.
I’m sure the White House could apply pressure and effectively veto a speaker. However, I don’t think anyone expected Colbert to be that brutal.
That’s actually younger than I thought he was.
Didn’t Clinton have Don Imus on back around '95 or '96?
It was suggested last year that the vetting people may have missed the irony of Colbert’s act. They thought he was an actual conservative political comedian rather than a satire of one.
I’ve noticed this with many of the guests on his show; they don’t get it, making it just that much funnier.
Our tighty righty brethren and sistren have* issues* with this whole “funny” thing. They sincerely try, they know they’re missing something, but cannot imagine what, exactly. They can pick up on verbal clues about when the punchline has been delivered, when its time to express jocularity. Its a kind of autism, maybe, dunno.
And they’re touchy about it too. Get all huffed up and start talking about Mallard Fillmore and Dennis Miller, and how they’re really funny and its *you *who doesn’t get it, and then the little vein in the forehead starts to throb, and its time to change the subject…
If I’m ever do the Corespondents Diner I’m telling one joke.
“It’s called The Aristocrats!”
According to Lewis Black you have to do your routine for a close representative of the Administration before you do your performance. Black has a great rant about how they made him change the word “laid” because they thought that it was offensive.
Jon Stewart’s reaction on The Daily Show to the clip of Rich Little doing his impression of Jimmy Carter was priceless. 
(Is it just me, or did Little look more like Nixon than Carter when he did that bit?)
Didn’t someone do a study a few years back on how this problem has a genetic component? I believe there was a thread on it. IIRC, the researchers were pretty high powered, Berkeley type folk.
I was wondering who the rich little Ensuckens are.
That crazy English language!
Mission Accomplished!!!
chirp chirp*
I keep reading the title as “Little Richard Suckin’ On Dead Donkey Balls” and thought it was another one of those you-tube videos. For once I was glad I have dial-up and can’t watch those things.
Alas, I saw the whole performance Sunday afternoon. I had looked forward to it, having fond memories of Little in the seventies (or was it the sixties); and I was somewhat surprised that he had been pulled out of mothballs.
They should have left him there.
Most of his jokes stank more than a dead fish in the desert sun, and made about as much sense as finding a fish in a desert. He spent five minutes doing - excuse me, recycling Johnny Carson (and all we got out of it was the “asshole” joke). His big finish was, of course, Nixon. I can only conclude Little has seen neither a newspaper nor a television in thirty-odd years.
I was annoyed that C-SPAN spent some time showing before-the-event celebrity walk-ins. I now understand why they did. It was the most interesting part of the event.
That reminds me, I wouldn’t be surprised if Miller is picked to do next year’s show. Judging from what I’ve heard on his new radio show, he seems to have not so much drunk but chugged the Kool-Aid.
So sad.
Several years ago I went to a dinner theater production of Shadowlands, the play about C.S. Lewis and his marriage of convenience turned marriage of love turned romantic heartbreak. It’s a bit of an odd choice for dinner theater and was a college/little theater production at that, so the actor playing the character (very loosely) based on C.S. Lewis was a 20 something Alabamian who compensated by wearing garrish old age makeup that made him look less like an aging professor and more like an emperor and he spoke in a big mess of an accent that was a composite of every English accent you’ve ever heard from BBC newsreader to Ringo. At that he was way more believable than the woman who played his wife who used an annoying blend of Edith Bunker and Molly Picon (“right? of course right!”). At least when she finally got cancer we got Peach Melba, but then we had to endure C.S. Ersatz’s polyglot meltdown which was so over the top we wondered if he’d seen the same annoying woman die we had.
The reason I mention the above is because I finally finished watching all of Rich Little in his entirety today and I would way rather sit through the dinner theater Shadowlands again. At least the Peach Melba was good.
I honestly think that I or most others could have winged it, gone in completely unscripted (can you believe that not only does Little have a writer, but the writer was there doing revisions up til the last minute?) and done 50x better a job. I mean, Sanjaya was there- that’s 10 minutes of material right there! Sanjaya, who got to where he was by some alleged spurious voting practices- how hard is it to make a roast-the-host comment (without even having to go Colbert overboard)? Sanjaya made up for lack of talent by constantly changing his hairstyle- show a Power Point of Gonzales in dreadlocks one day saying “I can’t recall” and in a ponyhawk the next day saying “I can’t recall”… show a video of a Bush speech with a reporter crying like the girl on AI… (speaking of, every talk show appearance Sanjaya makes parodies that- it’s as old as his singing Besame Mucho- I’m calling it, time of death- NOW! But for the White House Press Corps it would have been a step up.
Andy Rooney? Jimmy Carter [with faux teeth]? Johnny Carson? Does he imitate anybody who hit puberty after Pearl Harbor? And even his Clinton and Bush Sr. imitations were totally lame, totally apolitical AND HE’S DOING PRESIDENTS! Good God Rich, do we need to hold a telethon so you can pay off the double-wide and retire with some dignity? If so let us know and we’ll put one on, but please don’t perform.
And the crock of shit “We can’t be funny because of Virginia Tech” buzzkill lead-in… WTF was that about? If your jokes were about deranged South Koreans and school shootings then yeah, it’s probably too soon. In 1942 Beatrice Lillie gave a musical comedy performance on the night she learned her only child had been killed in action, for God’s sake- the show must go on and nobody’s going to assume you’re apathetic to Virginia because you went through with a scheduled lighthearted dinner. (Well, I’m sure somebody would, but I wouldn’t and that’s what’s important; I already assume you’re apathetic to suffering, but I don’t blame you for V-Tech and don’t think it would disrespectful.) You just come across far more as a thin-skinned dick (not that I’m mocking people with thin-skinned dicks as I’m sure it’s painful) for not laughing at yourself.
Normally I loathe them both, but I’d have so contributed to both of their bails if Steve-O and Andy Dick had crashed the party. This reminds me of the party in every “snobs v. slobs” movie where the blue collar kids take over the entertainments and the old farts end up dancing. Minus the blue collar savior. And Peach Melba.
Enema would be my guess.
Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy would have been better than Rich Little and they’re either conservative or at least too respectful to violently roast the president. And unlike Little, I’ve actually laughed at the Blue Collar guys.