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PEOPLE & ARTS Monday 12 noveMber 2018

Hear the one about Trump? You’ve probably heard a lot

By DAVID BAUDER logue jokes on shows host-
AP Media Writer ed by Stephen Colbert,
NEW YORK (AP) — Did you Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kim-
hear the one about Presi- mel and Trevor Noah last
dent Trump? Or, more pre- year.
cisely, did you hear all 3,128 There were a total of 6,337
jokes? political jokes in the show’s
A think tank that has stud- monologues last year, and
ied the content of late- Trump was the subject of
night comedy for the past nearly half of them.
26 years said Donald Trump Presidential humor has al-
was the butt of more jokes ways been a staple of late-
in 2017 than any other pub- night comedy, but hosts
lic figure has for a single would often make a cou-
year. By a lot. ple of jokes about the presi-
He beat the previous re- dent and quickly move on
cord of 1,816, set by Trump to other news stories, said
as a presidential candidate Bill Carter, author of “The
in 2016, said the Center for Late Shift” about the televi-
Media and Public Affairs at sion comedy shows. That’s This Nov. 6, 2018 photo released by CBS shows host Stephen Colbert on the set of “The Late Show
George Mason University not the case anymore, he with Stephen Colbert” in New York.
in a study released Friday. said. Associated Press
Prior to that, the record was “Rarely is there another top of the late-night ratings viewers would get tired of president exhausts report-
1,717 by former President news story that provides with a Trump-centric ap- all the Trump jokes, but now ers along with providing
Bill Clinton in 1998, the year fodder enough for the writ- proach, and his rivals have he’s not so sure. material for the comic writ-
of Monica Lewinsky. ers,” Carter said. “The writ- taken notice. “If Colbert came out and ers, he said. That has its
“Trump makes Bill Clinton ers seem to be consumed, Trump’s presidency has left didn’t do a monologue downside, however, since
look like a piker when it as the nation is consumed, many in the country in a about Trump, you’d say, late-night writers frequently
comes to political humor,” as the news media is con- state of high anxiety, and ‘What happened?’” he complain about having to
said Robert Lichter, head sumed. There’s an endless comedy provides an out- said. throw jokes out and write
of the center. The study and bottomless supply.” let, Carter said. The constant firehose of new ones late in the after-
looked at opening mono- Colbert has vaulted to the Carter used to think that news coming from the noon, he said.q