A live-stream commentary by TJ Walker evaluating comedian Sarah Silverman and Senator Al Franken’s performances at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Walker praises their comedic impact—highlighting Silverman’s appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters and Franken’s unexpected humor—while offering mild critiques about pacing and preparation.
Comedian Sarah Silverman and former comedian Al Franken, now US Senator, addressed the Democratic convention in Philadelphia this evening. How did they do? Well, it was a bit of a shocker for a lot of people who are used to seeing Al Franken as kind of the boring, straight laced senator. He's been in the Senate now in his second term, and pretty much hasn't said anything funny since he moved to Washington. He was trying to overcome the reputation of being a comedian. I guess now that he's been elected, reelected, he feels he has some breathing room. So he actually did some comedy, and truth be told, he was quite funny to the audience in the room and I think to a lot of Democrats, liberals, progressives, moderates and independents watching. He, of course, rose to fame through his tenure as Saturday Night Live, then as a radio talk show host and the author of books like Rush Limbaugh Ball as a Big Fat Idiot. His attacks on Trump were quite scathing and incredibly funny. Unless you happen to be a big Donald Trump fan. Overall, I thought it was quite effective. He was then joined by Sarah Silverman. She had perhaps the most memorable line of the whole evening that dealt with the issue at hand in the room when she told Bernie Sanders supporters, you're being ridiculous. Now, she had high credibility on this issue because she herself was an active, vocal Bernie Sanders supporter throughout the whole campaign. So she wasn't just a spokesperson for the Obama or the Clinton camp. She was someone who had a lot of street cred with the Bernie Sanders people because she'd been there, she'd been supporting him, she'd been actively campaigning for him. She then made the case of why she was actually very, very enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton and why the Bernie Sanders people should follow her and support Hillary Clinton, too, and the good things that would happen if Hillary is president and the horrible things that would happen if Trump was president. So she really did bring together various factions quite nicely. The Clinton campaign had to be very excited about that. I don't know that they were really happy initially with her saying to the Bernie Sanders people, you're being ridiculous, because it did arouse a lot of chants and cheers for Bernie Sanders. But at that point, it seemed to puncture and deflate a lot of the animosity in the room. After that, the rest of the evening, the Bernie Sanders people were fairly well behaved, other than some shout outs during Elizabeth Warren's speech. So overall, I have to give high marks to Sarah Silverman and Senator Al Franken. Although they were given more time at the end, they were told stretch stretch it out. We need more time to set up for Paul Simon singing. They could have prepared a little more content. They're both seasoned performers, but there was a little too much hemming and hawing. Oh, we got time to kill and they're talking about the time. As a general rule of thumb, you're giving a speech, doing a media interview, putting on a show. Don't talk about having time, more time, filling time. Just say something interesting. So they might not have known there was even a possibility of having extra time. But if you're going to be on a stage with tens of millions of people watching and you have the sort of background they do, they should have prepared more content. But all in all, they got the convention laughing. They got the convention and the pundits talking about how much better the celebrities and comedians and entertainers were at the Democratic convention than the Republican convention. So all in all, they had a very solid evening. I'm TJ Walker.
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