Joke from Tony Hinchcliffe apparently bombed when he told it on Saturday night, a day before New York rally
The podcaster who provoked an angry backlash against Donald Trump’s campaign with a racist joke about Puerto Rico reportedly tested out the gags at a comedy club the night before delivering them at Sunday’s televised rally at Madison Square Garden.
Tony Hinchcliffe, whose 11-minute set has thrown Trump’s team into damage limitation mode a week before the presidential election, made the same quip, calling the territory “a floating island of garbage”, at the Stand club in New York on Saturday, according to NBC.
The joke bombed, drawing just a few awkward chuckles, NBC said, citing one of its own producers and three audience members.
He really should’ve brought a cowbell to signal the audience.
It’s so odd. I watched the whole thing. Nothing is taken out of context here. He just took a dump on Puerto Rico. Supposedly, he originally was going to call Kamala Harris a cunt, but they were like no no take that out but leave the shitty Puerto Rico joke in. It just seems like he stepped out of his lane by not understanding he was at a political rally where the stakes are different. He was hilarious at the roast of Tom Brady. Too bad he had to go full fascist.
Yeah the joke fits Tony’s IDGAF style of comedy where literally nothing is off limits.
And while in other context it would still be a bad joke, it wouldn’t be taken anywhere near as bad as at a political rally like this. It doesn’t come across as a joke at all given the other political rhetoric surrounding it.
It’s especially insane since he was literally just at Madison Square Garden a month or so ago for like 3 days doing a massive Kill Tony special with 3 something like 300 other smaller comedians.
It’s interesting to me. He read the room just fine, he just didn’t read the room’s global position.
He’s a talented comedian in the roast/shock kinda of genre, but a political rally? A bit out of his element. And a bit stupid for the GOP to think he’d be a good fit here.
Sucks to suck.
The audience is at least 50% of this type of joke. Like if the punch line was making fun of Trump treating Puerto Rico like trash it could work as a joke.
But in the context of Trump’s wishdotcom nazi rally it isn’t a joke, it is just being cruel because the audience agrees with the statement. There isn’t a punchline, it is just calling Puerto Rico names and laughing at them like the bullies that maga idiots are.
And he STILL did the jokes.
I am absolutely not defending this racist’s jokes, so please do not think I am.
I am just going to explain why he still did the joke because I used to do stand-up (nowhere near at this high a level).
Sometimes, you are just convinced a joke is funny. You are absolutely convinced. Nothing will tell you it isn’t funny. The audience isn’t laughing? You told it wrong. Something was off. You have to tell it again because of course it’s funny. It makes you laugh every time you think of it. So you have to try again. And you can get stuck in that loop very easily.
The fact that he finds this joke funny says a ton about him. I get the roast comedy angle people bring up here, but I just don’t see how anyone could find that line funny.
I mean, I’m a leftist, an anti-racist, and yet there are are some racist jokes I still find funny due to the way they’re crafted, even if I don’t tell them anymore because some people still take them on the first degree (both racists and non-racists.)
But I just don’t see the joke here.
It’s him. He’s the joke.
They’re too woke/scared to enjoy it
THoSE people didn’t like it, that means it should smash for MY crowd!
-that guys internal dialogue… Maybe
I swear I head another comedian “test” that joke about 5 years ago only referring to the UK, not PR.
Yeah, it’s an old joke he stole. The first clue is the fact that he’s talking about the giant island of garbage which first made headlines years ago.
It’s an old hacky joke
Why was he roasting Puerto Rico and not Walz or Harris? Seems like a rookie move.
Apparently he was going to: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-shock-comic-was-set-to-call
We can always rely on the Republican Party for empathy and understanding:
Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, adopted an unapologetic stance, telling NBC that Americans “need to stop getting so offended”.
Roast comedy isn’t a big deal. I’d expect any roast comic not to help out the man making Hitler’s time in hell embarrassing by drawing comparisons with him, though. Do a roast at a Harris rally if you wanna bring the goods.
Definitely nazi shit in context.
I hadn’t seen anyone mentioning that he’s a roast comic until I watched John Stewart address this. That does kinda change how I feel about the jokes. Doesn’t change how I feel about him accepting a gig at a Trump rally, though.
Yes, this is the critical flaw in this whole ordeal.
Comedians make tasteless jokes all the time and they generally get forgiven since they often exist as boundary pushers. A comedian makes 100 jokes that ride the line and push a little bit, and 1 of them was too far or bombs or whatever, no biggie, live and let live.
But going to this event, at this venue, with this crowd is not the same scenario. It sets a tone and he even mentions it in his set, that he doesn’t normally play to a room full of grandmas and babies or whatever.
I see your point, but that racist dipshit should have realized a few things: not everyone knows that he’s a roast comic, it wasn’t a typical “roast” type of atmosphere, and he should have roasted the opposition, not people who the Republican Party is trying to attract.
What an idiot. This disaster is probably the closest he’ll ever get to fame.
