Man apologizes for joke that's not his

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on January 18th, 2008

It was in all the papers. Some guy, a Greeley, CO, businessman named Bill Farr, did some schtick at a banquet this week honoring CU president Hank Brown. Anyway, the guy does a bunch of fake telegram gags and one of them causes the audience to gasp– “If Obama wins they might have to change the name of the White House.”

Weak joke, told poorly. The gasps may well have been from comedians in the audience, horrified not only by the mangling of the joke, but by the audacity of Farr in pilfering a joke that is at least 44 years old. (Although he is an amateur.)

From a May 2004 article on CommonGround.com, a re-telling of the John and Yoko in bed story on that story’s 35th anniversary:

They had been there, in bed, for eight days, receiving scores of visitors. There were politicians of every stripe, from local MPs and MNAs to Quebec separatists. There were young, long-haired fans, journalists from a dozen countries; groups and individuals representing a spectrum of religions and peace groups; show-business luminaries from Tommy Smothers to legendary New York DJ Murray (The K) Kaufman, who styled himself The Fifth Beatle, and black comedian Dick Gregory, who four years before declared himself a candidate for the presidency. (“First thing I’ll do is paint the White House black.”)

The beleaguered Farr says, “I am not a politician. And I must not be much of a comedian,” and that “he got the joke from a political cartoon and didn’t think his remarks was (sic) ‘politically incorrect’.”

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