I'm always fascinated by a kind of event that turns up on C-Span two or three times a year. It's these dinners where much of Washington will gather to dine and hear speeches, and they bring in some comedian to entertain. They usually pick someone who does political material, which gives the comic quite a challenge. I mean, it's one thing to do jokes about the president and quite another to do them in front of the president and a ballroom full of people who work with or around the president. For the most part, the comics wind up tempering their acts and/or throwing in a lot of "I'm just kidding" disclaimers, and things often do not go well. Last year, for instance, Lewis Black spoke at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner and while he certainly didn't bomb, he also didn't get the kind of response he usually gets from an audience.
The tape of this year's Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner was on C-Span a little while ago. It airs again in an hour and will probably be rerun later in the week and posted to their website. The entertainer this year was impressionist Frank Caliendo, best known for his work on Mad TV. Caliendo's a good mimic and a funny guy, and his versions of John Madden and George W. Bush are especially good. Bush wasn't present for the event but Dick Cheney was about eighteen inches away from the rostrum as Caliendo went through his routine, peppering it with more assurances than were probably necessary that he liked Bush and had voted for him. The audience, including Cheney, seemed to have no problem laughing at a good George W. Bush impression…and even at one joke about Cheney and his rifle. (Cheney got a lot of laughs during his part of the program, especially with a slide show that poked fun at himself.)
Coming up later this month, I believe, is the White House Correspondents Dinner for which the president is usually in attendance. Entertainment will be provided by Stephen Colbert.
In the meantime, I'll post a link to the video of the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner whenever it's up on the C-Span site. And here's a link to three minutes of Frank Caliendo doing his George W. Bush and Bill Clinton material on Late Show With David Letterman…
