What JFK Would Sound Like as a Stand-up Comic
Photo courtesy of Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Contrary to what my rock-ribbed Republican grandfather believed, John F. Kennedy was not a stand-up comedian. Nope, he was a president. Kennedy, who would’ve turned 101 this month if, y’know, all that hadn’t happened (and, uh, if he somehow lived another 55 years without any major health problems), was such a stalwart figure of All-American virility that it’s kind of impossible to imagine him as anything other than some kind of big-shot leader guy. And yet that didn’t stop stand-up (and Simpsons producer) Dana Gould from doing just that in this clip from 1990, where the Boston-born Gould hypothesizes what JFK would’ve sounded like as a stand-up comedian. (As a proud son of the Commonwealth, Gould obviously knows how to do a good Kennedy, but it’s not like he would’ve put Vaughn Meader out of a job, or anything.)