Why Won’t Late Night Comics Rip Biden?

Conventional wisdom can’t explain the groupthink

During the mid 2000s, my comedian brother Matt Balaker hosted a Tuesday night comedy show at a bar on LA’s Sunset Strip. Each week my wife and I helped spread the word, and I’d also assume the role of DJ—I use that term loosely. 

Basically, I’d hang out in the back of the bar next to the A/V equipment. When I wasn’t disappointing patrons by telling them I couldn’t serve them a beer, I would tap my iPod Nano and shower comedians with vibe-appropriate intro and outro music. I’d usually bring headliners to the stage with Thunderstruck by AC/DC.

Not original, and not good for my indie cred, but it wasn’t about me. It was about getting the audience excited to laugh.

And laugh they did. 

As you’d expect, comedians cracked many a joke at George W. Bush’s expense. Then Obama entered the White House, and the Commander in Chief jokes ended. Some comedians couldn’t quit the last guy, and persisted with W bits well into Obama’s first term. 

Joy Behar explained that with Obama in the White House “there was nothing to make fun of there.” But that’s obviously not true, and even I did my part to keep America chuckling. 

Surely, the next president would receive double the jokes, and when Trump got the top job, the double dose quadrupled. With the election of Joe Biden came a flood of new material: age, gaffes, random acts of creepiness, and a son who makes Roger Clinton look like your accountant. 

Indie jokesters like Kyle Dunnigan and Ryan Long found success by refusing to suck up to any tribe, but the corporate world of late night comedy balked at the embarrassment of riches served up by Biden. The big names on the big networks have mostly given the Big Guy a free ride.

What gives?

It’s a question even Politico is asking. Too bad DC’s dispenser of conventional wisdom doesn’t offer much in the way of good answers. 

Case in point: “Late night and sketch comedy have always been self-admitted, proudly liberal bastions.”

There’s some truth to that assertion, but it can easily slip into overstatement. 

Remember, The Maddening has been with us for only about a decade. It was only in 2014 when Jay Leno left late night for good, and he bowed out as the ratings leader. Leno followed in the “equal opportunity offender” tradition of Johnny Carson, and said he “always liked to humiliate and degrade both sides equally.”

Of today’s three top network hosts, Stephen Colbert is the lone longtime lefty. Jimmy Fallon used to be Trump-tolerant (more on that later), and Jimmy Kimmel wants social media mobs to forget about his problematic past hosting The Man Show with Adam Carolla—remember their “campaign” against women’s suffrage? 

Now for sketch comedy.

Today we regard SNL as Team Blue fare, but that’s a recent development. USC’s Media Impact Project notes that, as late as 2008, SNL was a hit among Team Red. And why not? SNL cast members used to ridicule Bill Clinton with something approaching the same passion they mustered for Republican presidents. 

And although few were out of the closet while on the show, the list of monoculture dissidents among SNL alumni is quite long and includes Norm MacDonald, Chris Rock, Dennis Miller, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Victoria Jackson, Colin Quinn, Joe Piscopo, Jim Bruer, and Jon Lovitz.

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What About Ratings?

Comedians are usually far more committed to being rich and famous than to any political position, so I’m more inclined to pay attention to arguments that highlight those incentives. And if there is a term that combines the desire to be rich and famous into one word, it’s “ratings.” 

Politico points to one of the darkest days in Jimmy Fallon’s late night career. In 2016, the host didn’t just book Trump, he tousled his locks like a buddy would do!

It’s the kind of bland wackiness that late night viewers expect. No big deal, right? Wrong, says Politico, who calls upon an expert to explain.

Stephen Farnsworth, co-author of Late Night with Trump: Political Humor and the American Presidency, asserts that the combination of “Fallon’s congenial treatment of Trump” plus Colbert’s decision to target Trump relentlessly allowed Colbert to overtake Fallon in ratings. 

Politico notes that the tousle ignited a backlash: 

Many of Fallon’s viewers were incensed that he was mainstreaming a man who gleefully defied the norms of American politics and demonized immigrants by treating him like a goofy office holder or a garden-variety celebrity. 

No doubt many of Fallon’s progressive viewers were incensed, but progressives only account for about 8 percent of America. Even if you go by political affiliation, Ds and Rs each claim about a quarter of the electorate, while independents score the biggest slice (45%). 

I don’t know the demographics of Fallon viewers back in 2016, but those who would know best (Fallon and his producers) must have figured they were still sort of in Leno’s world. They were, after all, obviously caught off guard by the progressive backlash.

Maybe there are some demographic quirks specific to NBC that make well-rounded comedy taboo, but it doesn’t explain why the other networks back the monoculture. Keep in mind the King of Late Night isn’t Colbert, Kimmel, or Fallon—it’s Greg Gutfeld. 

But don’t expect the big networks to try to lure Gutfeld from Fox, and don’t expect them to promote successful YouTubers who refuse to suck up to any tribe. 

But why not?

The networks are still profit-maximizing entities, right? So why do they cater to only a small slice of their potential market? And why do they insist on hiring part-time comedians?

Stay tuned for answers part 2!

Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His recent work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and the new feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Stream the very first “Substack Presents” feature documentary here.