Trevor Noah appeared on the NBC hit ‘Tonight show with Jay Lenno’ this past weekend. He’s the first South African comedian to guest on the show and by all accounts was very well received.
His 6 minute routine was littered with racial overtones for which he’s received a fair bit of criticism, lines such as ‘America has the credit rating of a black man’ and his poking fun of the ‘Afro’ part of the ‘Afro-American’ term just 2 examples.
He then exaggerates life and difficulties as a coloured person during his younger years, most if not all the laws and practices which he refers to were abolished long before he was born, but the American audience lapped it up and gave him a standing ovation.
I can only find the first 3 minutes of his routine for you, the full 6 minutes is available on the NBC tonight show page here.
Boadicea's Chariot 
oops, what’s happened to the formatting, hope it’s not my fault 😕
It was 😦 bit better now 😳
Fixed! 😆
You used DIVs instead of Ps and set their width to 650px. You used DIVs for blank lines – which never works in WordPress. 😀
Actually, I pre wrote this post using a blank ‘new post page’ which I’d previously used for that ‘salt mine slideshow’ post.
That’s where the div (originally 425’s) came from. I had already published, so tried to make the best of a bad job, Thanks for your help.
No worries, Soutie – it’s a delight to help someone who knows what I’m talking about! 😀
“Embedding disabled by request !!! 😀
He’s a funny guy!
I know, reinforces your point of yesterday!
I actually found the whole 6 minute performance on Youtube only to find that the NBC lawyers had got there before me and I got the ‘NBC claim blah blah infraction blah blah blah copyright blah blah etc. we’re sorry’ statement!
Soutie, if I might comment on the thread (!), maybe it’s a healthy sign that a South African comic can join in with the American tradition of poking fun at its sorry history. Would you agree?
Howzit Janus
I think that Trevor is cool, I’ve watched him here on stage. In fact we tried to get Trevor for an Autism fundraiser, Trevor said yes but we just couldn’t get the dates together.
You suggest that America has a ‘sorry history’ I’ll have difficulty agreeing with that, perhaps you’d care to expand.
As with my Black Mamba post (where international sports commentators referred to the player as a black so and so) I couldn’t care less.
I simply thought that this was another fine example of humour for the sake of humour.
For all its claims to be the land of the free, America’s integration of its ethnic components of all shades continues to be halting and unenthusuaistic.
“appeared on the NBC hit ‘Tonight show with Jay Lenno’ ”
Hi Soutie, I have not yet watched the clip, but I cannot believe that anybody could describe the ‘Tonight Show’ as a hit. I just think that Jay Leno is the most idiotic plonker on earth. He has never said anything remotely funny or interesting. It amazes me that people watch it. David Letterman is no better. Johnny Carson was as bad as both of therm. I don’t know what it is about American chat shows, but they are truly awful. My ambition is to do something really famous that warrants an invitation to one of them, just so I can tell them how unfunny they are.
Just my opinion, of course.
Sipu, Letterman is the worst, IMHO. Self-congratulatory and unfunny.
Hi Sipu.
I arrived at my ‘hit’ description after reading the IOL report (click on pic of Noah & Lenno) and the Sunday Times article (follow link.) I don’t watch any of them ever!
It does appear though. that a good reception and possible endorsement from these hosts can go a long way to an artist making it big in The States and if this helps Noah on his way to stardom and untold riches good luck to him.
My point however is how the media treat people who use racial overtones differently on opposite sides of The Atlantic.
In the UK a simple tweet about a ‘black cab’ or comment on a sportsfield makes headline news, in the USA my 2 examples don’t cause a ripple of discontent!