A reader who attended Rich Little's stand-up performance at The Cannery in North Las Vegas on Saturday night reports that the impressionist did his little Barney Frank joke again in a slightly different configuration than the one that cracked up the Nevada Republican Party convention on Friday. An excerpt of the account:"He introduced a woman in the audience who he said was the best female impersonator besides for Barney Frank. I almost yelled that this was the Cannery, not Green Valley Ranch where he entertained last night."
The reader also noted that Little's best impression was of Andy Rooney but that the jokes themselves were lifted verbatim from Steven Wright, whom the reader said he has seen twice at the Orleans in recent years. The act was laden with anti-Obama, Carter and Reid gags, which is fine if they had been funny. Evidently, not so much.
Rich Little is an interesting figure because he was called upon in 2007 to perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner the year after Steven Colbert's scorcher embarrassed President Bush. The reviews were brutal but he didn't do much current-event political humor then.
I'm not one to write off someone just because they're old or they've been out of the public eye for a while. In fact, some of the most interesting interviews come from talking to such people. But it seems like Little wants to make himself relevant again by stealing material, resorting to incredibly simplistic homophobic humor and polarizing audiences who aren't expecting to be polarized. If you go to Dennis Miller or Bill Maher, you know what you're getting. Go to Rich Little and you're probably looking for a little nostalgia.
Little evidently was aware his act wasn't doing well last night, quipping, "If you bomb at the Cannery, does that mean you've been canned?" Ba-dum-dum.
My reader said that Little again noted that he's become a U.S. citizen so he could vote Republican. CityLife Steve Sebelius' clever Twitter zinger on that topic could teach Little a thing or two about political humor: "Recently naturalized Little says he can vote GOP. He's got prejudice down."
