How times have changed! Once upon a time, comedians didn’t dare crack wise about Barack Obama. This was only not because of a self-imposed prohibition against poking fun at blacks but because Obama was widely regarded as too cool to be the butt of jokes.
Here’s Chris Rock in July 2011:
He’s just one of those guys, you know, like Will Smith. There’s no Will Smith jokes. There’s no Brad Pitt jokes. You know, what are you going to say? ‘Ooh, you used to have sex with Jennifer Anniston. Now you have sex with Angelina Jolie. You’re such a loser.’ What do you say? ‘Ooh, your movies are big. You make $20 million.’ There’s nothing to say about Brad Pitt….
[In Obama’s case] it’s like ‘Ooh, you’re young and virile and you’ve got a beautiful wife and kids. You’re the first African-American president.’ You know, what do you say?
And here is outgoing “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno in last night’s monologue, describing how ineffectual the Denver Broncos were in Super Bowl XLVIII. The “money” part of the routine comes at about 0:45.
