Post-election comedy panel dissolves into rancor

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on November 7th, 2008

We discovered this brief article from AFP yesterday (and two of our sharp-eyed readers sent along links to it as well).

The title, “US comedians sharpen claws for Obama presidency,” is somewhat misleading. The lead quotes are from “satirical cartoonist” Ted Rall, who said, “Making fun of George Bush is so easy– it’s just kindergarten stuff… Doing Obama is going to be so much more fun.” In addition to cartooning, Rall also writes regular screeds about politics (notable for their extreme cynicism and their all-capped headlines). We’re not so sure we’d categorize him as a “comedian,” though.

The occasion for the remarks was a post-election comedy discussion panel to kick off the New York Comedy Festival.

For now, most comedians, including the panel on Wednesday, seem to be holding back from making fun of an election victory they all wanted.

Too soon?

Well, no. After all, it’s a post-election comedy discussion panel. If there were ever a time when a bunch of comedians might have been excused for making jokes about the new president, it might have been at a panel convened specifically to discuss comedy in the new era.

And, from what we can tell, the panel got a bit rancorous “during a row between the comedians and one of the panel’s two lone conservative guests.” Not a good sign when the post-election comedy discussion panel only contains two members of the opposition. (And doubly bad when one of them is the irritating and utterly humorless Monica Crowley! Who booked this thing?)

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