Thursday, June 5, 2008

Dustin Hoffman and Jay Leno

UPDATE, January 8, 2009: Dustin Hoffman's frog joke
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UPDATE, December 22, 2008: Dustin Hoffman talks dirty on David Letterman



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July 3, 2008: After NBC's Wimbledon recap, the rerun of this episode of the "Tonight Show" was shown.

This time I was paying attention. Yes, the Omar Sharif joke was rather off-color.

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Dustin Hoffman was Jay Leno's guest on Thursday's Tonight Show.

Hoffman began with talking about how much he dreads doing talk shows because he feels he has an obligation to be funny.

Then, Hoffman set out to be funny.

He began:

A husband says to his wife, "Why don't you ever tell me when you're having an orgasm?"

Punchline: "Because you're never there."

Hoffman delivered a bleep-filled performance, some vulgar joke about Omar Sharif's mustache.

I wasn't paying attention, other than noting the multiple bleeps.

(Note: Hoffman told an old joke about a flea. He said the audience would see that the joke was old because he was going to keep the original actors' names in his retelling. The flea wanted to take a vacation, someplace sunny. He first vacationed in Cannes in Ringo Starr's hair. The flea was dissatisfied and went back to the travel agent. Next, the flea went to Monte Carlo in Omar Sharif's mustache. The flea wasn't happy because Sharif was inside playing Bridge and the flea wanted to be out in the sun. After that, the travel agent suggested that the flea go to Nice in Brigitte Bardot's [bleep]. The flea goes back to the travel agent. The travel agent wants to know what's wrong. The flea said the vacation was great with Bardot, but he was disturbed because three days later he found himself back in Omar Sharif's mustache.)

Leno said to the audience, "As you know, I was going to leave next year. I'm going to leave now."

The joke must have been pretty off-color for Leno to respond that way after Hoffman's punchline -- Omar Sharif's mustache.

During his appearance, Hoffman also managed to work in some politics by telling a Chris Rock joke:

"McCain is so old that McCain once owned Sidney Poitier."

Funny?

I don't think so.

Hoffman isn't one to talk anyway. He was born in August, 1937.

McCain was born in August, 1936.

Yes, Hoffman is so youthful compared to McCain.

Hoffman participated in the cooking segment with Hell's Kitchen chef Gordon Ramsay.

Of course, the bleeps continued to fly, along with burned tortillas.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I happened to catch part of the show while channel-surfing. Could NOT BELIEVE the tasteless jokes Hoffman told. Thought the blogs would be abuzz this morning, but they aren't. Maybe nobody watches Leno anymore.

Mary said...

Or maybe no one was taken aback by Hoffman's behavior.

What was so bizarre and jolting was when they showed the clip of the movie Hoffman was promoting, Kung Fu Panda. It's an animated movie aimed at kids.

Not that the kids were watching Leno, but it still was weird -- a family movie being plugged by the foul-mouthed Hoffman.

Very strange.

Anonymous said...

It seems no one has a sense of humour any more. What a pity.

Anonymous said...

I happened to turn it on just as Hoffman was telling the joke about Sidney Poitier. The audience gasped and came just short of booing. Hoffman just laughed it off but things went from bad to worse thereafter with the bleep-filled joke about Omar Sharif's mustache. Leno looked embarrased. It became excruciating to watch, so I turned it off.

I've done news searches several times today expecting to see outrage and no one picked it up (??) except this blog. I guess Hoffman gets carte blanche. Lucky for him he's not GOP, running for office, right wing, Catholic, Mel Gibson or Michael Richards! Otherwise, he'd have been eviscerated by the press before the closing segment!!

Anonymous said...

hi...don't know what caused me to watch Leno last night...but came in when Dustin was on his "game"...

and when I heard that joke about McCain's age...I didn't think I heard what I did...

went to my kid (15) and repeated the joke...and my kid said "what????"

it really was bizarre....

and i thought i would hear more about it in cyberland...but alas...seems to be the way of the world these days.....

scarey times these are..

Mary said...

Your comment isn't clear, "anonymous, 1:53 PM, June 06, 2008."

Are you saying that it's a pity Hoffman chose to be offensive rather than humorous?

Anonymous said...

The Sidney joke wasn't Hoffman's. It's Cris Rock's. He specifically gave credit to Rock for it.

The audience didn't boo. They just went "ehh." Because it wasn't that funny.

But I thought the mustache joke was funny actually.

Mary said...

As I said in my original post, I wasn't paying close attention to the segment.

I didn't hear Hoffman credit Chris Rock with the John McCain/Sidney Poitier joke.

However, I did hear the audience respond less than favorably to Hoffman's delivery of it.

The Omar Sharif joke might have been funny to you, but it clearly was told in a manner that NBC deemed inappropriate. The chorus of bleeps indicates that.

Unknown said...

i thought it was hilarious. partially because of the shock value and added effect because of the place it was told. Kinda like telling the Aristocrats joke on national televeision. Also, it reminded me of some of the jokes I've heard on foxxhole radio. It is cool when they (the foxxhole crew) and Chris Rock say it, but when Hoffman says it, I am supposed to be offended? Meh

Mary said...

You're not supposed to be offended.

You can respond however you wish.

You thought it was hilarious. Good for you.

Anonymous said...

The joke told by Dustin Hoffman was very funny but inappropriate on Jay Leno's show even tho it is a late night audience..I personally felt badly for Jay....you could see he was squirming with embarrassment..Maybe Mr. Hoffman has a limited supply of jokes or just cannot remember any appropriate ones since he is in his declining years...hope to see him in another award winning movie..but won't forget this performance too soon...Grandma

Mary said...

What surprises me is that NBC chose to RERUN the episode with Hoffman.

Someone there made the decision that Hoffman's performance was worthy of another airing.