Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Conan O'Brien: Obama and Green Bay

On Tuesday's Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien looked into the future.

"The future, Conan?"

No, not the Year 2000 ( or 3000).

O'Brien included a joke in his monologue that needed some basic factchecking.

He said that Obama spoke at a town hall meeting in Green Bay earlier in the day.

O'Brien went on to say that half the crowd had never seen an African American, and half had never seen a skinny person.

Lame, on a number of counts.

Problems:

1. The town hall meeting is Thursday.

2. We've all seen African Americans.

3. We've all seen skinny people.


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UPDATE: Here's the joke as reported by the Los Angeles Times--

"Speaking of President Obama," NBC's new late-night host had in his Tuesday script, "Earlier today, President Obama spoke at a town hall meeting in Green Bay Wisconsin. Half of the Wisconsin crowd had never seen an African-American and the other half had never seen a skinny person."

A funny comment for many, unless you're among Wisconsin's dominant white Cheeseheads. Some of them overweight. And these shows do always try to be topical.

It's not funny. It's stupid. It's BS. It's mean and inaccurate.

Many states have greater rates of obesity than Wisconsin.

Check out the data from the CDC.

It's just a joke. I should lighten up, right?

I'm not seriously offended by the joke at all. I'm used to Wisconsin jokes. I only mention it because I don't know how the writers managed to screw up Obama's schedule.

Where did they hear that Obama's town hall meeting in Green Bay was on Tuesday?

Here's more, from the LA Times:

The town hall doesn't happen until Thursday. Minutes before the show's airtime in the East tonight, the show's LA writers, asked for comment, were scrambling to determine what if anything to do. Clipping out the snafu is one possibility. Watch and see how they handle it.

(UPDATE: 8:35 p.m. Pacific. No snipping for the Eastern time zone. They ran the joke as was.)

4 comments:

Chris from Racine said...

Okay, I just have to add one thing. We're talking Green Bay - home of the Green Bay Packers. Someone may want to inform Mr. O'Brien that there are a few African Americans on the team. Good Grief!!

Mary said...

No kidding.

It's really such a stupid joke on so many counts.

Sarah said...

I completely agree. You think that they'd double check the facts before they make inaccurate jokes on national television. Jokes that aren't even funny in the first place.

Jeremy said...

i thought it was funny. you are just making a big deal out of nothing. lighten up.