This is no laughing matter.
On Wednesday, five late-night hosts — James Corden, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel — made essentially the same joke about President Donald Trump neglecting to sign his nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels.
And it isn’t even a particularly good one.
In a nutshell, the joke is that it’s funny Trump didn’t sign the nondisclosure agreement because he generally likes to put his name on everything.
Sopan Deb of The New York Times tweeted about the played-out quip on Wednesday night. A quick search on YouTube proved him right.
“This is amazing mostly because this is the first time Trump has ever not put his name on something,” Corden cracked.
“He remembers to put his name on everything else, water, vodka, steaks, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,” Kimmel joked.
“So this is the thing Trump thought was too sketchy to put his name on? What about Trump University or Don Jr.?” Colbert used as his punch line.
“The same guy who slaps his name on everything — buildings, vodka, the least sexy ‘Twilight’ vampire,” Noah quipped as a picture of the president’s eldest son popped up on screen.
Meyers’ joke was slightly different, poking fun at Trump’s penchant for signing and then displaying executive orders: “That’s right ― the business-man president didn’t even remember that when you make a deal, you have to sign it. Which is surprising, considering how much he loves showing off his signature.”
Jesse David Fox of Vulture suggested that the problem isn’t a lack of talent in late-night writers’ rooms but rather the source material itself.
As Fox wrote back in December, “If there is one thing that has defined Trump’s presidency, it’s the rate at which he’s been bad at it. While that might sound like a good thing for comedy — there’s something new to joke about every day! — comics actually don’t need more material. They need people to care about their material long enough for them to make their jokes better.”
So basically, because Trump causes a newsworthy catastrophe on an almost daily basis, late-night shows are bound to churn out some uninspired gags.