Here, the NBC sketch show mocks former House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich for his lofty plans to colonize the moon.

Instead, he’s making excuses for President Barack Obama’s first term.

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The increasingly political “Saturday Night Live” alum is co-chairing a Feb. 15 fundraiser for the president’s re-election campaign. But you have to be a one percenter to afford the entrance fee – $35,800 each. Let’s hope that includes Ferrell wearing his cheerleader outfit for some high-energy kicks and jumps.

The bigger issue is getting Obama re-elected, and Ferrell argues the president’s case with a little fuzzy math.

Ferrell declared his support for the president a few months ago, saying he “most definitely” wants Obama to win another term. “Every president has a hard job but I think his is times ten,” he said.

“Key & Peele” stars comics Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele in a new sketch comedy series that fills a void left by the old “In Living Color” series. “Saturday Night Live” has featured a mostly white cast for decades, but having two black performers front and center could open up some new comedic possibilities.

But how will the show treat the first black president?

If this clip is any indication, the answer is – with deference and defense. [warning: offensive language]

The segment involves an “anger translator” who tries to show us Obama is really a cool, powerful leader to be feared. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need a pair of comedians telling us that. The translator also wants Obama’s critics to chill out so he can get some things done. The sketch ends with a litany of “accomplishments” from the last three years, a veritable unpaid political ad gussied up as comedy.

To be fair, Jordan Peele does a solid Obama, nailing his slightly strangled line readings and composure, and Keegan-Michael Key brims with comic brio. But aren’t comedians supposed to mock people in power? Remember how they feasted on President George W. Bush’s malapropisms and President Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions?

Wouldn’t the show get a serious promotional bump if they shot out of the gate with a clever but cutting bit involving the president? Instead, we get a segment trying to defuse the silly meme that Obama doesn’t show anger. Aren’t most presidents composed even during tumultuous times?

The last three years have given us cowardly comics who refuse to deliver the kind of satirical shots most presidents endure. “Saturday Night Live” occasionally gets its hands dirty mocking Obama, but they spend far more firepower on his GOP opponents. The most incisive bits have come from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” oddly enough. Meanwhile, the comic paper of record runs cover for Obama.

Let’s hope “Key & Peele” proves conservatives wrong and delivers some smart, sophisticated political humor with bite. Just don’t place any bets on it.

Cast member Andy Samberg, sporting the now-signature Santorum sweater vest, shares how he plans to overtake former Gov. Mitt Romney and win the GOP presidential nomination.

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“I’m going to skip the slick TV ads and take my case directly to the people,” Santorum says, promising to visit every county across the nation in the process.

“Some of these counties are quite dangerous … San Francisco County, California is home to literally thousands of angry pillow biters and doughnut lovers  … ’nuff said.”

“If the lesbians don’t get me, the Mormon death squads probably will,” he says.

The opening sketch wrapped with the obligatory reference to the former Senator’s “Google problem.”

“So maybe one day long after I’m gone, my grandchildren can look me up on Google and find something, you know, something different than what’s there right now,” he says.

Last night, Baldwin found another cozy spot for his damage control effort – “Saturday Night Live.”

Baldwin, a frequent and hilarious guest on the sketch comedy show, appeared as the fictional captain of the flight he was booted off of on Dec. 6. The bit, part of the show’s Weekend Update segment, found the captain singing Baldwin’s praises and apologizing for the airline’s treatment of him.

All the while, a confused Seth Meyers, the Weekend Update anchor, breaks character to tell Baldwin this approach might not be the best way to make amends for his actions.

Instead, Koechner emerged as one of Hollywood’s more trustworthy comic supporting players in films like ‘Anchorman,’ ‘Extract’ and ‘Thank You for Smoking.’

He may not see his name above the marquee, but chances are if he’s co-starring in a comedy it’ll contain a few extra laughs. Together with fellow comic actors Joe Lo Truglio (‘I Love You, Man’), Thomas Lennon (‘Bad Teacher’) and Ken Jeong (‘The Hangover’), Koechner is one reason why the state of modern movie comedies is as robust as it is.

Koechner recalls watching ‘SNL’ for the first time at age 13 and knowing he would one day grace that NBC Studio stage. He just didn’t figure his time on the show would be so brief. He says he got fired by the same NBC executive who let go popular Weekend Update host Norm MacDonald – Don Ohlmeyer.

Getting canned did have an upside.

“Six months after I left the show I met my wife. Things happen for a reason,” he says.

Koechner may have scored with subsequent hits like ‘Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby’ and ‘Get Smart,’ but he wishes more people would check out some of his less heralded films like ‘Extract.’

“Mike Judge is our Woody Allen,” he says of the film’s director, best known for creating MTV’s ‘Beavis & Butt-Head.’

At this point, Koechner says the film industry is more than ready to typecast him as the go-to “loud, broad” type, and he fears being trapped by those dimensions.

“I’m hoping to do a serious film or guest spots on TV dramas,” he says.

It’s why he’s so fond of ‘Tenure,’ a 2009 gem that never got a theatrical release. He plays a bearded college professor obsessed with finding Sasquatch. The role let Koechner show another side of his often zany screen persona.

These days, audiences can find Koechner on the road with a stand-up routine he glibly describes as “an old tent show revival meets a panic.”

“I have a pretty regular show. I talk about my wife and kids and do lines from my movies. I’m not a political comic,” he says. Doing stand-up calls upon his improv skills while giving him more control of his career.

“It’s a great promotional tool, better than taking ads out,” says Koechner, who will be visiting Denver and Roswell, GA next month. “It helps build awareness.”

It’s also embraces a cold reality in our economically fragile times.

“The media is changing. There are going to be greater opportunities for those who want to take advantage of it,” says Koechner, name checking podcaster Adam Carolla as just one example. Koechner is in talks to streamcast a comedy program called ‘Carneyville’ with fellow comic Dana Gould.

“You get to express yourself in any way you want to, rather than doing something others are providing to you,” he says.

Of course, even freewheeling venues like podcasts and stage shows come with restrictions. Just ask Christopher Titus, who caught flak for a death threat gag against Sarah Palin in a comedy podcast, or Tracy Morgan, who ended up doing an apology tour after he promised to kill his son if he turned out to be gay.

“We all have to battle for our independent selves,” he says, likening those cases to the battles once fought by the likes of Lenny Bruce. “It’s not just comedians who are gagged. It’s everybody.”

Koechner has a cameo in the early 2012 comedy ‘This Means War’ as well a larger role in the upcoming horror sequel ‘Piranha 3DD.’ Audiences will also see in in more episodes of NBC’s ‘The Office’ and ‘Chuck.’

But he’d really love to clear his schedule for an ‘Anchorman’ sequel – if it ever happens.

“It seems like a no brainer,” says Koechner of the 2004 Paramount Pictures comedy starring Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate. “I don’t know if it’s political or budget, but from what I’ve heard the budget is in line. In any other studio in town it would be made.”

“All I hear [from fans] is, ‘where’s the next one?” says Koechner, who loves being a part of a film that struck a nerve with the public. “It’s crazy … sometimes you get lucky.”

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It would be ridiculously easy for our so-called political satirists to use Obama’s teleprompter addiction as a way to define him for the fool he really is…

Which is why our so-called political satirists refuse to do so.

It ain’t about the funny. It’s about the politics.

These people aren’t satirists, they’re left-wing partisans disguised as satirists.

Unfortunately, their enthusiasm might have caused them to jump the gun. Since last Thursday’s GOP debate was devoid of A-list candidates, “Saturday Night Live” didn’t have any solid characters to parody. So rather than make the late night ensemble work, the writers just fictionalized a debate between the more famous undeclared candidates; using characters they will probably be able to recycle during the upcoming campaign.

It was like watching a focus group, each actor trying out catch phrases they hope to use over the next year and a half. They even had Keenan Thompson resurrect his Jimmy “Rents 2 Damn High” McMillan character (personally I would think they could have gotten the real Jimmy McMillan, at or below AFTRA rates, which would have had the added bonus of making the skit funny).

For even less of a reason, they decided to trot out Tina Fey, to perform her award-winning impression that she thought was tired three years ago. This makes no sense. Sarah Palin doesn’t even have a Presidential exploratory committee; at least Jimmy McMillan once suggested that he would run for President as a Republican. Back in 2009, CNN thought it was necessary to fact-check “Saturday Night Live” for an Obama skit, I wonder what those fact-checkers are doing today?

Much like jokes about airline food and phone booths, Tina Fey’s impression seems like it’s from another era. I was puzzled why they didn’t bring in Rich Little to do his Nixon impression. If it’s okay to add Republicans who aren’t even running for President, why limit yourself to the living?

Mind you, they’re still charismatic and entertaining to watch, but in an almost clownish way. We now go to see them not to be wowed by their acting, but to be entertained by their chewing the scenery and hamming it up. Whereas in the past they lost themselves in a part, now their well-known, theatrically overblown personalities overwhelm everything else on screen.

Who are the worst offenders? My own Top 5 list was compiled with two ground rules: each candidate had to be alive (so James Dean and Marlon Brando each get a reprieve), and they have to have won at least one Academy Award for acting (which spares modern, less-laurelled hams such as Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Depp, Woody Allen, Jeff Goldblum and Mel Gibson.) Again, the following actors are not necessarily unpleasant to watch — raw charisma goes a long way — but they have become predictably one-note parodies of themselves.

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5. Tie: Christopher Walken/Robert De Niro

Best Supporting Actor: The Deer Hunter (1979 — Walken), The Godfather, Part II (1974 — De Niro)

Best Actor: Raging Bull (1981 — De Niro)

Insufferable Affectations: unblinking eyes (i.e., The Innsmouth Look), mouth hanging agape and licking lips like a parched salamander, creepy monotone dialogue delivery (Walken); incessant squinting, head cocking, aimless glancing around between lines (De Niro).

When every comedian is doing impressions of you and when Saturday Night Live builds entire skits out of mocking your instantly recognizable mannerisms and vocal intonations, you’ve perhaps become a bit too ossified in your acting range and delivery.

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4. Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Actor: Capote (2005)

Insufferable Affectations: eternally constipated facial smile/grimace, slothful dialogue delivery, labored mouth-breathing.

Easily my least-favorite actor of the modern age, a sort of monstrous antithesis of everything that once made Hollywood classy, glamorous, and great. Whether mouth-kissing Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights (1997), rutting naked with poor Marisa Tomei in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), or channeling stomach-churning depression and illness in the incomprehensible and excruciatingly pretentious Synecdoche, New York (2008), he always seems to be hammering us in the solar plexus with premeditated attempts at disgust, ennui, and despair, levied against us for our own good in the name of Art. His winning an Oscar for Capote seemed a fitting capstone to arguably the single worst-ever year for the Academy Awards.

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3. Jack Nicholson

Best Actor: As Good As It Gets (1997), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1976)

Best Supporting Actor: Terms of Endearment (1984)

Insufferable Affectations: Cheshire cat crap-eating grin, arched eyebrows, overblown temper tantrums.

When a young Christian Slater effortlessly channels you in a movie like Heathers, you know the shtick is worn out. And that was way back in 1989. Like most hams, his later career has been a steady stream of mostly forgettable movies, with few coming close to the fine pictures of his early days.

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2. Al Pacino

Best Actor: Scent of a Woman (1992)

Insufferable Affectations: flamboyant yelling, whiskey-soaked drawl, throwing arms and hands wide open when making points in ego-driven monologues.

I still remember the promo trailer in the theater for Carlito’s Way, where the studio started with a greatest-actor-of-all-time type audio medley of Pacino’s past performances. “Aaaaaaaaticaaaa! Aaaaaaaaaaaticaaaaa! . . . .I’d take a flaaaaaaaamethrower to this plaaaaace!” et cetera. What happened to the actor who made Michael Corleone such a measured, quiet, emotionally believable person in the first two Godfathers?

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1. Meryl Streep

Best Actress: Kramer vs. Kramer (1980), Sophie’s Choice (1983)

Insufferable Affectations: ostentatious accents, reading every line as I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T.

There isn’t a more soullessly mannered and technique-driven actor working today. Every syllable, every movement is so calculated and consciously performed and projected that it feels more like an impression of the character than the character itself. Far from losing herself in a role, she always glows as bright as possible, ever shooting for that next acting accolade. I can’t think of a single movie where her presence seems calibrated to the story, where she’s an organic part of the movie’s tapestry. Like a diva on stage or a star basketball player hogging the ball, she always demands the spotlight. As a result, she has many individual awards but few if any enduring and beloved classics to her name.

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The following movies, each containing not one but two Top 5 hams in them, should be packaged in DVD cases made out of rye bread:

Doubt (2008 — Streep and Hoffman), Angels in America (2003 — Streep and Pacino), Ironweed (1987 — Streep and Nicholson), Heartburn (1986 — Streep and Nicholson), Heat (1995 — Pacino and De Niro), The Godfather Part II (1974 — Pacino and De Niro, mitigated by the fact that they don’t appear together on screen and both are still in their pre-ham prime), Righteous Kill (2008 — Pacino and De Niro), Scent of a Woman (1992 — Pacino and Hoffman), Gigli (2003 — Pacino and Walken).

And there’s one movie sporting the unholy intersection of an astonishing three members from this list, which must make it the cataclysmic thermonuclear ham movie of all time: The Deer Hunter (Streep, De Niro, Walken).

From Bill Maher to Jon Stewart to David Letterman, the television airwaves are full of comedians with their own programs who lean to the left and love skewing those on the right. Many of these comedians have attracted widespread praise and admiration for their talents. Comedians on the right, however, often haven’t had a television forum to criticize those on the left.

Hopefully, that will change with “Right 2 Laugh.”

Comedian Evan Sayet hosts the new show. At the beginning of the episode I screened, Sayet opened the show with a few jokes and introduced the featured stand-up comics. 

Dan Nainan was the first of three comics to appear in the program, and his act  focused on his unique nationality and his work for the computer company Intel. Nainan joked, “When I applied for the job at Intel, they said ‘You’re Indian and Japanese. You don’t even have to interview. You could be vice president.’”

Ellen Karis was the second featured comedian. She joked about getting married, “Sex and the City,” and working on Wall Street. Unlike many comedians on the left, Karis spoke fondly about doing comedy in the South and working on Wall Street. Instead of going for stereotypical targets, she produced smarter punchlines for the audience.

Before the last comedian came out, an animated infomercial promoting Obamacare appeared. This was similar to the fake commercials that “Saturday Night Live” often airs for ridiculous products. After an elderly woman spoke about Obamacare, the information on how to order the health care plan appeared onscreen.  The text on that page noted that Obamacare comes “from the makers of the stimulus package.” Below that, it said “Massive obligation! Call Now!” (I wish the Obama administration had marketed the policy that honestly!)

The last comedian featured in the episode was Jack Simmons, whose set featured a lot of social commentary. He was, by far the wittiest comedian of this particular episode. He joked about subjects ranging from how California leans to the left to bad parenting today. “My parents were parents. They weren’t trying to be our best friend,” Simmons said in one bit. One day, Simmons said he asked his mother about why she wasn’t parenting him like she wanted to be his friend. “She said, ‘Do you think if you weren’t our children, we’d want any of you as a friend?’”

Some of the jokes on the show were politically incorrect, including Simmon’s jokes about having a female president. Before viewers could angry get though, Simmons sang a song about people in our society who are so easily offended. He also said, “It’s comedy, folks. Somebody’s gonna get hurt. You know that.”

I wasn’t a fan of some of the politically incorrect jokes on the show but I did enjoy Simmons’ routine. Of course some people could be offended by his comedy. However, conservatives are often criticized for being too sensitive when liberal comedians attack so one could assume that liberals wouldn’t mind the politically incorrect humor on this show.

Although some of the comedy fell short, I really enjoyed the show and hope it has a long life. “Right 2 Laugh” is a show that isn’t afraid to be politically incorrect and covers a variety of topics that aren’t covered by typical liberal comedians. Since the show is in its infancy, there are still some weak bits, but if given the chance, “Right 2 Laugh” should be able to improve its already engaging format.

In the meantime, “Right 2 Laugh” is the right place to look for a few good chuckles.