BY SHIRLEY WU
In 2009, President Obama became the first sitting president to appear on a late-night talk show. First Lady Michelle Obama followed suit in 2012, appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They've been on many more talk shows since, promoting HealthCare.gov and urging America to get moving. From this plethora of comedic gold arose a great opportunity: to put emojis on the POTUS and FLOTUS's face.
You may be wondering, "why do something so ridiculously silly"? Simple: it's been a long and exhausting election season, and we'll all need a pick-me-up come Election Day.
Since his first time on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the President has made 24 late-night appearances on 11 shows with 10 different hosts. Impressively, the First Lady has very similar numbers despite a three-year late start: 22 appearances across 12 shows, also with 10 hosts.
They seem to favor hosts David Letterman and Stephen Colbert over the years, appearing four times each on both shows. Over the past half year however, the POTUS and FLOTUS have both appeared on newer shows hosted by Seth Meyers, James Corden and Samantha Bee.
(Hover over the images for more detail on the host or appearance.)
The FLOTUS has made many appearances since 2012 for Let's Move!, Reach Higher, and Let Girls Learn to promote healthy living and girls' education around the world.
The POTUS's appearances, on the other hand, peaked in 2012 (presumably for the election) and again in the last year to reflect on his presidency and promote Hillary Clinton's run for presidency.
(Hover over the hosts to see the corresponding guest appearances.)
Out of the POTUS and FLOTUS's 46 appearances on late-night, 50 video clips have made it on to the hosts' official Youtube channels. The earliest uploaded video was the Evolution of Mom Dancing (FLOTUS) on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2013, and the most viewed were Mean Tweets (POTUS) on Jimmy Kimmel Live with 46M views and Carpool Karaoke (FLOTUS) with 45M views on the Late Late Show with James Corden.
(Click any circle to watch the video on Youtube. If nothing else, watch Carpool Karaoke because FLOTUS is the coolest.)
And finally, the pick-me-up: below are circles representing the 29 videos, each with a screenshot for every time someone talked. Select a video to see the images, and hover over the timeline to read the corresponding captions. Click on the timeline to see 's on the President's face. Then, click on the image to jump to that moment of the video.
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