Leno’s Recycled Jokes at White House Correspondent’s Dinner
Jay Leno apparently thought it was unnecessary to come up with fresh material for his performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend, and we really can’t blame him. It means, when you’ve got huge piles of gold like this lying around, why waste your time digging up more?
While Barack Obamasummoned “Daily Show” staffer Kevin Bleyer to write his gags for Saturday night’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner, a Politico.com review of Leno’s act shows the evening’s headliner trotted out recycled gags from TV shows past.
Leno, who recently took back “The Tonight Show” spot after CoCo was unceremoniously ousted, repeated gags from his NBC show as well as “The Jay Leno Show”–and they were met with deafening silence, the DailyBeast.com reports.
On the March 16 episode of “Tonight,” Leno said in his opening monologue, according to the Politico.com report, “If you took all the money the Republicans have spent trying to stop health care, and all the money Democrats have spent trying to get health care, we could afford health care, you know that?”
The gray-haired comic adapted the quip for Saturday’s dinner as the following, “If you took all the money Republicans spent trying to stop health care, and all the money Democrats have spent trying to get health care, you know somethin’? We could have had health care!”
On the April 7th episode of “Tonight,” according to Politico.com, Leno joked: “They said President Bush did a better job throwing out the first pitch. But on the other hand, President Obama can talk.”
Meanwhile, Obama’s fresh gags had the crowd in stitches, particularly his jab at Leno.
“The only person whose ratings fell more than mine did last year is here. Great to see you, Jay!,” he said, prompting some of the biggest laughs of the night from the A-list audience.
