Swerving from Colbert to Little

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on January 23rd, 2007

According to Jeffrey Goldberg, writing in New Yorker, Steve Scully, a senior executive producer of C-SPAN, and the president of the White House Correspondent’s Association (and the man who booked Stephen Colbert into last year’s dinner), has decided on Rich Little as this year’s entertainment, “because Billy Crystal charges too much money” We’re pretty sure Scully was kidding.

Little, who had a variety show on television in the nineteen-seventies, appeared on Letterman not long ago but hasn’t had much other television work in recent years. “My agent tried to get me on Maher’s show, but I was told that Bill said, ‘That Rich Little is a pretty funny guy.’ He didn’t want to take the chance that I would be funnier.” Little said that he does not find Maher and his ilk terribly funny. When asked to name a young comedian he admired, he responded, “Robin Williams. He’s just off the wall.”

We’re pretty sure Little isn’t kidding.

Goldberg also reports that Little’s website contains a list of 169 impressions. Of those 169, 115 are of people who are dead. And 112 of those sound suspiciously like Rich Little doing an impression of Johnny Carson.

And, in case you’re wondering, “Maher and his ilk” includes every comic under the age of 60. Robin Williams excluded, of course.

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