( CNN ) C-SPAN 's live telecast of the White House Correspondents ' Association dinner on Saturday night , hosted by Cecily Strong of `` Saturday Night Live , '' was not Strong 's finest hour , though the entire affair seemed like five of C-SPAN 's longest hours . Even so , there were some genuinely funny moments , although the ratio was low , and you had to be patient to get to them . But when you step back and look at the event as a whole , and appreciate what 's really happening -- in terms of press freedoms and even a U.S. president willing and able to poke fun at himself as well as others -- it 's hard not to think of this particular Beltway-meets-showbiz event as a wonderfully American exercise in tolerance and good humor . That being said , it 's a very tough room -- and not just because the Washington Hilton ballroom is so cavernous . More than 2,000 credentialed White House journalists and their mostly celebrity guests convened for the occasion . And convened , and convened , and convened , as time dragged on and dinner was served late . President Barack Obama , as Strong 's warm-up act , did n't hit the podium until 10:20 p.m. ( Strong got her turn at 10:45 . ) Obama , as in past years , came out strong -- a tough act to follow for any comedian . He had strong comedy lines and delivered them with timing that many stand-up comics would envy . Noting his lame-duck status , Obama said his advisers asked him if he had a bucket list . `` I have something that rhymes with bucket list , '' he claimed to have replied . Obama , noting the night 's guest speaker , said , `` On 'Saturday Night Live , ' Cecily impersonates CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin . '' Then , after a brief but well-timed pause , he added , `` Which is surprising , because usually , the only people impersonating journalists on CNN are journalists on CNN . '' Obama was nailing his own punch lines frequently , and perfectly . Then , to up the ante on his time at the podium , he welcomed his `` anger translator '' -- a recurring character played by Keegan-Michael Key on Comedy Central 's `` Key & Peele . '' It was a clever surprise , and the crowd reacted with surprising enthusiasm ( I would n't have presumed most of them knew of Key 's character or his series ) , though Key 's jokes lost something in the translation , and did n't pack the punch of Obama 's . But the bit ended with a great twist : Obama himself getting so worked up about a snowball being carried into Congress to denounce global warming that the President 's `` anger translator '' had to calm Obama down instead . And then came Cecily Strong , with a sly opening line referring not only to her appearance as one of the few female guest speakers at the correspondents ' dinner , but to the upcoming 2016 presidential election . `` Feels right , '' she said , `` to have a woman following President Obama . '' From there , the crowd seemed as tough as advertised , with `` oohs '' often as loud as laughter , as Strong went from one target to another . She even got `` oohs '' when her targets were outside the room , as when she said , noting how Obama has aged visibly in office , `` Your hair is so white now , it can talk back to the police . '' But the seemingly tepid response to Strong 's routine may have been partly due to the late hour . She came on after not only the dinner service and Obama , but after scholarship awards , correspondent awards and tributes and other bits of official business . And her routine was n't over until 11:08 p.m. -- making it a longer TV show than even the Emmys . Before the main event finally began , C-SPAN filled the time scanning the room with its cameras , but providing only ambient sound with very few identifying voice-overs or prerecorded features . Once in a while , you could see someone recognizable in the large , oddly eclectic crowd : Tea Leoni , Ivanka Trump , Larry Wilmore , Jane Pauley . For the most part , though , it was like playing a frustratingly difficult Beltway game of spot-the-face-in-the-crowd -- a sort of `` Who 's Waldo ? '' And after a few hours watching a gaggle of people chat and eat , all I wanted to do was go home . And I was already home . But I stayed tuned , just so I could watch , and grade , the results . Final tally : Obama gets an A- , Keegan-Michael Key a C , Cecily Strong a B- , and the entire telecast and event an A+ for democracy -- but a D as television .
David Bianculli : Correspondents ' dinner , and Cecily Strong as host , were mostly weak , but Obama had some funny zingers . He says `` anger translator '' bit was funny , but crowd was tough on Strong as event went on and on .