White House Correspondents Dinner 2013: Conan O’Brien jokes about ‘Duck Dynasty,’ NRA

Following the funny speech featuring President Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it was time for the main event: A routine from TBS late-night host Conan O’Brien. It had already been a rough night for Conan, mostly because everyone took shots at him over the easy fact that NBC removed him from “The Tonight Show,” only to give it to another “Late Night” host in Jimmy Fallon a few years later.

Well, Conan got some of his NBC jokes out of the way during the opening of his monologue, saying that the number of “Tonight Show” hosts has “tripled” since Obama became President.

This was a fast-paced, funny, and at times shocking speech by O’Brien, as he really took no prisoners over the course of 15 minutes. He mocked the seating chart, the NRA, Joe Biden, and even CNN’s John King for getting some reporting wrong just in the past week. He quickly went from one joke to the next, and really did not waste almost any time in his set. This is a good thing, mostly because this is well-known as one of the toughest crowds out there. While Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel both received rave reviews, there were plenty of panned performances before this (even if we did love Stephen Colbert’s scathing performance).

There were some jokes of Conan’s that did not go nearly so well: A bit about “Duck Dynasty” and Barbra Streisand fell very flat, and some of his jokes about Newsweek and TIME were probably too true to really be funny. The show was not as funny as we have seen in some years, but there were still moments worth laughing at.

What do you think about Conan’s routine as a whole? If you want to check out our take on Obama’s speech at the event, be sure to visit the link here.

Photo: TBS