Al Franken, Cigars the Butts of Bill Clinton's Forgotten Jokes

“He asked me to tell that,” Clinton noted from the podium.

Other changes Clinton made between document and delivery included the removal of a Pat Buchanan joke. The president also refused to say Rush Limbaugh’s name, even though it was part of the gag. Instead, he opted to say that Franken had written a book titled, “What’s-his-name Is a Big Fat Idiot.”

While some of Clinton’s jokes back then would fall flat today, others are still totally on point. “He’s the fellow next to the baby raccoon and the iguana,” Clinton said, pointing at then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican known for his love of zoos.

And apparently making fun of CNN never goes out of style: “Breaking news, Wolf Blitzer breathlessly does a live feed from the front lawn of the Hilton to announce CNN has learned the dessert will be mocha puffs in chocolate sauce,” Clinton said, reading a mock “pool report” from the dinner, in which he did a ticktock of everything he missed because he was late.

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The weirdest joke came at the very beginning of the speech, as Clinton explained that he was tardy because he was coming from a charity event at Chelsea’s school. Clinton discussed auctioning off a pair of shoes he wore the day he met President John F. Kennedy, referencing – as The Associated Press put it at the time – “the huge amounts of money paid recently for JFK memorabilia at a New York auction.”

Continuing along those lines, Clinton made a cigar-related joke. “By the way, if anyone here is willing to pay $500,000 for a presidential humidor, I’m happy to go out and buy one,” the president said. 

The dinner that year was held on May 4, and the infamous “cigar incident” with mistress Monica Lewinsky happened about a month before, on March 31, 1996.

In April, Lewinsky was shipped off to work at the Pentagon. The affair wasn’t unearthed until January 1998.