Don’t look for laughs in the imperial city.
That’s the takeaway from the 20th annual “Funniest Celebrity in Washington” contest held at the National Public Radio building in Washington, D.C., Wednesday evening.
The contest, formerly billed as a charity event until recent reports questioned where the funds actually went, was a smorgasbord of warmed-over political jokes, fumbled one-liners and anecdotes about working for the federal government.
Funny stuff.
Guests were given a taste of what the evening had in store when event founder and MC Richard Siegel opened the show at around 7:10 p.m. with a barrage of flat gags, including jokes about dating a “Jewish princess” who liked that his name is Rich, divorce and a former lover who subsequently turned to lesbianism.
What followed onstage was a succession of various D.C. “celebrities” vying for the distinction of being 2014’s “funniest” person in the city.
Newsweek contributing editor Matthew Cooper went first and gave the audience a masterful demonstration on how not to be funny.
His jokes, read from a printout stashed in his left suit pocket, featured lines about the Right’s obsession with “Obama socialism,” Dick Cheney being old and twisted, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, looking orange (this gag would be repeated later by a separate contestant) and the recent, racially tinged unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City’s Staten Island.
When Cooper joked that Ferguson police planned to ease tension in the small Missouri town by canceling Kwanza, the crowd let out an audible groan — and not a good one.
The Newsweek editor responded by clarifying that he was riffing on the “a**hole” cops, not Kwanza.
The only thing worse than a lousy joke is having the punch line explained. It’s like setting a dead body on fire.
James Kotecki of Automated Insights went next.
His routine consisted of him playing a guitar, singing with a cartoonish Southern accent and riffing on what the people of North Carolina, where he now resides, supposedly think about the nation’s capital.
The song, “Real America,” contained jokes about buffets of deep-fried food, people who hate the Affordable Care Act and the South’s apparent love of fossil fuels. At least the song rhymed.
“That took some major guts!” a woman in the audience whispered after Kotecki finally surrendered the guitar and exited the stage.
Up next was Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. He joked mostly about his family and married life. His routine, though not terrible, was flat because he kept fumbling his jokes, most of which were simply not that funny.
Norquist, for example, mused about making money by inventing a disposable end table. It would be called a “one-night stand.”
Funny stuff.
This was followed by an intermission: A “music video” that featured Siegel riffing on Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., to the tune of the Spin Doctors’ very dated “Two Princes.” The parody video consisted almost entirely of Siegel standing in a living room and lip-syncing while two women danced around him.
As the music video dragged on, certain members of the audience, some of whom were dressed as if it were New Year’s Eve, shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
The Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page followed the video monstrosity.
Page had a good presence and delivery, but he was not entirely funny. His jokes were more like pleasant anecdotes; the sort of thing you’d expect to hear from a college professor just before the start of class.
The same went for former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, who spent the lion’s share of his time on stage recounting old tales from his time working for the Clinton administration. Again, it was pleasant, but not particularly funny.
Then came Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein, proving through a punchy set of one-liners that he understands the importance of timing and delivery.
However, his announcement at the end of his routine that he would not do a set of Ferguson jokes because he’d like to keep his job served only to remind the audience that the nation’s capital is probably not the best place for people obsessed with “messaging,” “branding,” and “optics” to get involved in smart and original comedy.
When the evening mercifully came to an end at around 9:30 p.m., its runtime now on equal footing with a viewing of “Lawrence of Arabia,” Glickman was awarded the show’s top prize, presumably for his anecdote about when the former Republican presidential candidate and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was hit in the face with a pie.
Funny stuff.
