TELEVISION
Last candidates standing do comedy ads
Posted on Thu, Aug. 07, 2008
BY LISA DE MORAES
Washington Post Service
Casting about for more low-rated television shows to shill for, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain have shot ''funny'' campaign ads for Thursday's season finale of NBC's Last Comic Standing.
The 30-second-ish ''ads'' are a real coup for the NBC comic-competition series. This season it's pulling in its smallest audience yet, about 5 million viewers, which is slightly smaller than in that third, rushed season in fall '04 when NBC yanked the low-rated show and sold the finale to Comedy Central.
Speaking of Comedy Central, we're guessing the candidates got sucked into doing this for Last Comic Standing after getting good notices for their appearances on, say, The Daily Show -- which, they are about to find out, has mostly to do with how good Jon Stewart is at making them look funny and human and all.
Don't believe me?
The Obama ad opens with the candidate standing behind a lectern, telling Americans: ``Hi, I'm Barack Obama and I'm running for president of the United States. Remember to vote for me in November. And if you don't think I'm funny, you've obviously never seen me bowl.''
A picture of him bowling appears on-screen.
Obama then turns to someone off-screen and says, ''I'm not going to deliver this line any better than that'' and walks off.
The End.
The McCain ad begins with him behind a lectern, telling Americans: ''I'm John McCain and I approve this message. A president has to be funny. They just have to be.'' Photos of a slack-jawed, cowboy-hatted President George W. Bush; a sax-playing President Bill Clinton; and a Bonzo-bedtiming pre-president Ronald Reagan appear.
''Unfunny presidents only serve one term if they win an election at all,'' McCain continues. ``I may not be the last comic standing, but I'm definitely the funniest candidate for president.''
''Yeah -- funny-looking!'' says an off-camera voice.
''Who said that?'' barks a faux-angry McCain.
The End.
The idea got its start at a meeting of the Last Comic Standing writers, according to show executive producer David Friedman. Originally the idea was to have the show's five finalists cut their own ''campaign'' ads, since this is an election year and American viewers also get to vote for who wins the annual competition series. You know the drill. Anyway, that idea somehow morphed into approaching the two presidential wannabes, both of whom said yes.
And why not? In June, both men shilled for Lifetime network's Army Wives for its second-season debut -- and that show gets even fewer viewers than Last Comic Standing. Those plugs were couched as ''salutes'' to military families, though the network took the bits in which the candidates said they watched the show and spoke the name ''Lifetime'' and wore them out in promos for Lifetime and the series.
McCain's ad was shot on NBC's lot last month, when he was taping an episode of NBC Universal's syndicated Ellen DeGeneres talk show. Obama's was shot last week at the Omni Shoreham in Washington.
Friedman says the two candidates' writers worked with the show's writers to come up with the ads, and it was pretty much the same as working with any ``celebrity.''
Speaking of celebrities, Friedman says he was not any more surprised that the men who would be president said yes to the pitch for an appearance than he is when anyone agrees to appear on the show. Obama and McCain will be joined on the season finale by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
And Jon Lovitz.
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