The Top 10 Jokes We're Sick of Seeing on Late Night Shows

  1. There's a bottle of Clorox or Drano or some toxic liquid on stage. The host picks it up and drinks it.
  2. Someone — the star, a band member, the announcer — says they're going to do something amazing and then there's an obvious switch to a stuntman who performs the feat. (Variation: The old "Super Dave Osborne" gag of substituting the person for a dummy which is maimed, run over by a car, thrown off the roof, etc.)
  3. Fat guys in the crew with their shirts off.
  4. 80% of all jokes where the premise is that Bill Clinton is horny, George W. Bush is stupid, Al Gore is boring, Dick Cheney is having hourly heart attacks, Janet Reno is a man or Gary Condit is guilty.
  5. Sending a staff or audience member to a nearby store to buy something silly and/or just be real annoying.
  6. Look who's holding the cue cards!
  7. The announcer is (a) in drag, (b) constantly being molested by a stalker or (c) secretly doing something perverse in his dressing room or backstage.
  8. Hey, let's stop people on the street and ask them questions we know they won't be able to answer! (Or play a game we know they won't be able to win.)
  9. Going door-to-door and getting people to either dress up funny or welcome us like guests into their lives.
  10. And now, here's a has-been celebrity who will do any stupid thing we think up, just to get on the show…