Was Sarah Palin’s Tonight Show Set ‘Sweetened?’

Sarah Palin was on the Tonight Show on Tuesday doing a standup routine for the first time. Jay Leno, not known for launching actual standup comics, actually noted for the exact opposite, had the also-ran veep candidate current Oscar swag recipient on the show and then brought her back to do a comedy routine.

Writer Micheal Stinson was in the audience when the show taped live. “After I got out of the show I tweeted, ‘Listen for me laughing, no one else is,’” he tells FBLA. According to Stinson about 70% of the audience was indifferent to Palin and wasn’t reacting to her tepid jokes. Some jokes failed completely according to Stinson. “There were moments when there were crickets,” he says. “I was laughing – this is funny – she’s bombing.”

Then when Stinson watched the broadcast that night, the laughs were completely different. Palin appeared to kill. The audience was wailing in laughter and applause. Stinson was stunned and angry. He felt it was fake and somewhat dishonest. We asked him if he thought it was a laugh track put in or just the audience mike turned way up. He told us he thought it was a little of both.

So far Stinson has had interviews with the Washington Post, Inside Edition and Howard Stern‘s research team.

Watch the video at NBC here.

An NBC spokesperson tells FBLA that neither the audio nor the laughs were enhanced for Palin’s set.

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