Michelle Obama on Billy on the Street: The first lady promotes fruits and vegetables, slow dances with Big Bird.

Watch Michelle Obama Slow Dance With Big Bird on a Very Funny Billy on the Street

Watch Michelle Obama Slow Dance With Big Bird on a Very Funny Billy on the Street

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Slate's Culture Blog
Feb. 18 2015 11:55 AM

Watch Michelle Obama Slow Dance With Big Bird on a Very Funny Billy on the Street

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In Billy on the Street, Billy Eichner plays “an over-opinionated, shrieking, petulant asshole” who “approaches strangers with complete and total impatience,” as my colleague Willa Paskin wrote in her review last year. This shtick is uncomfortable when Eichner accosts random New Yorkers, but it takes on added suspense when he monopolizes the time of someone who clearly has better things to do—someone like, for instance, the first lady of the United States.

Michelle Obama is surprisingly game and generous on the Funny or Die series, on which she appeared this week to promote a new program in which beloved Sesame Street characters appear on fruit and vegetable packaging to encourage kids to eat healthier. Most people will hit play because they want to watch Obama slow dance with Big Bird and push Eichner around in a grocery cart, gags that pay off. But it’s worthwhile to stick around till the end, because after Obama’s appearance ends, Eichner unveils his own brilliant campaign featuring J.K. Simmons’ picture on strawberry cartons instead of Elmo’s.

L.V. Anderson is a former Slate associate editor.