Ongoing Election Jokes
Nov. 17 -- Got e-mail? Then no doubt you are being flooded with mock ballots, quips and cartoons poking fun at everyone and everything from the Florida voters to candidates Gore and Bush to the ever-elusive chad — whether hanging, dimpled or pregnant.
These references, previously obscure, are now as infamous as O.J.’s glove.
The political jokes are flying faster than the presidential votes can be counted as talk-show hosts and average Americans attempt to make sense of this bizarre election.
“I’m inundated, I must have gotten over 20 to 25 versions of the ballots …, If I hear one more hanging chad joke I’m going to hit somebody,” says standup comedian Barry Weintraub, who staged his own mock campaign. As candidate Barry Who, he urged folks to vote.
Weintraub admits the never-ending election is a comic’s dream. “I wish I could have planned for this,” he says. “I would have been working on stage through all of this.”
As Al Gore and George W. Bush sweat it out, Weintraub pumps out a daily broadcast e-mail composed of mock headlines, such as: “Democrats to demand recount by hand … Republicans offer only their middle finger.”
Ballot Squiggles, Dancing Candidates
The mayhem has given rise to some of the best material David Letterman and Jay Leno have ever had. Even the usually surly Grinch is getting involved. The green villain of the new Jim Carrey flick, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, just might be upstaged for laughs by some writers at Politically Incorrect, who came up with a Seussian-inspired vote count:
Should we count them with a band? Should we count them all by hand? If I do not like the count, I will simply throw them out!
That poem circulated the Net without even being used in a broadcast, according to Weintraub, a friend of the writers. “I asked them how this got all over the Internet — they had no idea,” he says.
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