DorobekInsider: Judging DC’s funniest celebrity… and the winner is…

I mentioned that I got to be one of the judges for the 16th annual DC’s Funniest Celebrity contest last night — even despite a bit of controversy. Given that I was seated between between WTOP “Man About Town” Bob Madigan and the Geico Gecko, the night is already a big hit… but there were also some very funny people there.

Now I consider myself to have a decent sense of humor, but I just cannot imagine having to stand up and be funny. That’s not my thing. So I give the folks who were there a lot of credit for signing up for it — this isn’t their day job. They were asked to do it — and most did quite well.

The big winner, however, was White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, who was quite funny doing political version of the Kevin Nealon-SNL classic Mr. Subliminal.

You need to get into his presentation, but… you’ll get it…

The big target of the night across the board — the one and only Sarah Palin, but VP Cheney, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, health care… there were plenty of barbs to go around.

Politico’s Patrick Gavin — also a judge — has more on Politico.com:

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee took home the top prize in the 16th annual “D.C.’s Funniest Celebrity” contest on Wednesday evening, and he did so in a very unconventional way. Instead of adopting a traditional comedic routine of joke buildup and punchline, Goolsbee peppered an otherwise expected stump speech on the Obama administration’s goals with subtle asides that constituted a humorous, sarcastic, self-deprecating and conspiratorial insight into the administration’s most accessible punchlines. The targets? Hillary Clinton, Sen. Ben Nelson, Rod Blagojevich, Sarah Palin and Fox News.

Read Gavin’s full story.

Some photos from the event…

The DorobekInsider and the Geico gecko

And the winner is... Austen Goolsbee with Baratunde Thurston