{"id":401753,"date":"2026-01-09T10:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401753\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T10:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:14:07","slug":"conan-obrien-says-donald-trump-has-been-bad-for-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401753\/","title":{"rendered":"Conan O’Brien Says Donald Trump Has Been Bad for Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tConan O\u2019Brien is concerned that the anger over Donald Trump<\/a> has caused comedians to lose their humor. O\u2019Brien spoke at the Oxford Union earlier this week and reflected on how the ire around the current administration has resulted in less laughs and too much fury. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cComedy needs a straight line to go off of,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we don\u2019t have a straight line right now. We have a very bendy, rubbery line. We have a Slinky. We have a fire hose that\u2019s whipping around, spewing water at 100 miles an hour or something else. So, comedically, it\u2019s been very challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Brien continued, \u201cI think some comics go the route of \u2018I\u2019m going to just say F Trump all the time,\u2019 or that\u2019s their comedy. And I think, well, now a little bit you\u2019re being co-opted because you\u2019re so angry. You\u2019ve been lulled. It\u2019s like a siren leading you into the rocks. You\u2019ve been lulled into just saying, \u2018F Trump. F Trump. F Trump. Screw this guy.\u2019 And I think you\u2019ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny, and you\u2019ve exchanged it for anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe comedian explained that he doesn\u2019t buy the argument that things are too serious to be funny right now. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think, well, if you\u2019re a comedian, you always need to be funny,\u201d he said. \u201cYou just have to find a way. And you you just have to find a way to channel that anger. Because good art will always be a great weapon, will always be a perfect weapon against power, but if you\u2019re just screaming and you\u2019re just angry, you\u2019ve lost your best tool in the toolbox.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring his talk, O\u2019Brien recounted a memory from his time working on The Harvard Lampoon. \u201cThere was one magazine we could never do a parody of, which is the\u00a0National Enquirer,\u201d he said. He explained the magazine is \u201cthe one that says \u2018Elvis found in Titanic lifeboat 105 years after sinking. He is now a woman, and he\u2019s married a giant peanut butter sandwich.’\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe noted, \u201cHow do you parody that? You can\u2019t. With Trump, we have a similar situation in comedy, which is people saying, \u2018We\u2019ve got a great Trump sketch for you. In this one, he\u2019s kind of talking crazy\u2026 and he tears down half the White House to build a giant ballroom, and he says it\u2019s going to be the new Mar-a-Lago.\u2019 \u2018Yeah, no, that happened yesterday.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite O\u2019Brien\u2019s comments, the comedian has been vocal about the Trump administration\u2019s actions. He stood up in support of Jimmy Kimmel last year when Jimmy Kimmel Live was temporarily suspended<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe suspension of @jimmykimmel and the promise to silence other Late Night hosts for criticizing the administration should disturb everyone on the Right, Left, and Center,\u201d he wrote on social media. \u201cIt\u2019s wrong and anyone with a conscience knows it\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conan O\u2019Brien is concerned that the anger over Donald Trump has caused comedians to lose their humor. O\u2019Brien…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,8956,2490,134,427],"class_list":["post-401753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-conan-obrien","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}