Old TV Show’s Joke About Richard Nixon Being The Current President Would Never Fly Today

CARLSBAD, CA—In a moment that reportedly caused viewers to reflect at how much freedom comedians used to have, an old TV show’s joke about Richard Nixon being the current president would never fly today, sources confirmed Monday. “It just shows how much things have changed—if a late-night show host got up there today and made a joke where Richard Nixon is the current president of the United States, he’d get criticized immediately,” said Elliott Lerner, one of the many viewers of an old 1971 clip of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson who reportedly shook their head in amazement at how much the climate for jokes has changed in recent years. “If you did that right now, people would start attacking you on Twitter for presenting lies and misinformation to the audience while maintaining it was just a joke. And it’s not only TV. If I went to some local standup comedy open mic and repeated verbatim this joke by Johnny Carson—Johnny freaking Carson!—about Richard Nixon being the current president and embroiled in the war in Vietnam, I bet you no one would even laugh because everyone’s too uptight these days. Everyone would be all up in arms about how it’s not appropriate to make a joke where Richard Nixon is the current president of the United States in 2021. You just couldn’t get away with these days. It’s pathetic. And don’t even get me started on that quip about Spiro Agnew being the vice president—that joke would never, ever land today.” Viewers of the footage admitted that there was some material in the 1971 Tonight Show broadcast that had stood the test of time, as a joke about Elizabeth II being the queen of England still resonated with viewers today just as much as did back then.