January 15, 2009

The First Obama Joke on Comedy Central, Circa 2005

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Via the SF Bay Guardian‘s Pixel Vision blog comes this charming little tidbit: what may very well be the first Obama joke made on Comedy Central. It was Bay Area comic W. Kamau Bell who picked the Senator out of almost-obscurity for a bit on black leaders in a stand-up routine back in 2005. He tells the Guardian that Comedy Central actually informed him that it was Obama’s first mention by a stand-up comic on the network, so, you know, he’s not just spinning. The jokes are, in fact, rather tame, imagining how Obama’s name might strike people as a little “too black” if he were to run for president, but for that reason they’re actually kind of cute—that was us, just a few years ago! Awww!

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