We can’t think of a better way to celebrate the forcefully conjoined birthdays of the American Presidents with the baddest-assed hair styles — up top or down under — than with a recap of the final episode of this year’s “America’s Best Comic” competition that took place at the UCB last Saturday night.

The night opened with host Possum (Tom Sharpe in overalls and a mustache), the 5th wheel on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour Used RV of Hilarity, warming up the crowd with a few classics delivered in his Southern Drawl. He followed each punchline with a brief but extremely-detailed description of why each joke was funny, letting the audience behind-the-overalls to show how an artist creates. Before bringing out the two finalists, Possum introduced a short video showcasing the comics that have been cut along the way.

First cut was Mr. Polite (Matt Besser in glasses and buttoned-down bookworm-wear), who bowed out of the competition after feeling that comedy was just too darn mean.

Next cut was Sal Montero (voiced by Howard Kremer, maybe?), an enormously fat Italian who had the bad luck of trying a new dieting pill before his performance. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the pill was invisibility, and all of his material was visual gags. He was disqualified for being invisible.

86-year old Ben Alterman (Andy Daly as an old man) was next up, a surprisingly dirty comic, who relied on observational humor from his nursing home. He was disqualified because of death.

Dant Phant (Matt Besser in a fah-laming persona), whose hilarious gay Korean accent overshadowed any rehearsed jokes he may have told, was last cut.

Following the video, Possum brought out the first of that night’s celebrity judges: head writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Chocolate Puddin’ (Andy Daly dressed like a 10-year old carrying some kind of toy plane). Puddin’ explained how he got in a horrible accident that left him virtually brain-dead, and all he could do was watch The Tonight Show. One night he thought, “I could write that!”, and indeed he could.

The second judge was Al Franken (James Adomian in another of his spot-on impressions), who thought judging the contest would be a good way to start his newly-announced bid for a Minnesotan Senate seat.

The final judge was Pope Benedict XVI (Matt Besser in a mostly red pope outfit, entering the stage to some hip-hop music) who tried out his new Gay Test with a few audience members before answering Possum’s question about the Pope’s stance on condom use by twirling a condom full of “condom juice” over the audience’s heads, shouting “You trust it?!” the whole time.

The competition was ready to start … but first, another video. This time a comic challenge. For the challenge, the two finalists had to go to an open mike and steal material without getting caught. Jason Yellow (Matt Besser blind, deaf, without arms and shouting) and Jerry O’Hearn (Andy Daly in business casual-wear) sat in the back of the room, taking notes while other open-mikers performed. When it was their turn, they performed the exact same joke, almost word-for-word, to the audience. O’Hearn lost the challenge when one of the other comics noticed he wasn’t a 40-year old woman.

With that out of the way, it was time for the first finalist on the night: Jerry O’Hearn. If anyone’s seen an O’Hearn performance, then they realize it’s kind of tough to recap. He didn’t tell any jokes. And he didn’t have any opinions. But man, was he hilarious. For those unfamiliar, this post by O’Hearn over at AST is probably the best example. After the set, the judges commented up from the booth: Chocolate Puddin’ giving him 10 monkeys (”out of how many?” “Well, how many are there?”), The Pope loving his lack of opinion, and Al Franken giving a 5.

Before Jason Yellow’s performance, there was time for one more videotaped comic challenge. This time the challenge took the duo to Universal Studios were they tried to deflect heckles. Jerry O’Hearn won this challenge by attacking a woman’s choice of dress (”What did you do? Buy those with money?”).

Jason Yellow — blind, deaf, and armless — came out and did his usual set of yelling, facing the wrong way, kicking Possum, drinking some water, checking his set list, and saying how hard it was to do observational humor without any tools of observation. He’s performed this a few times, and it hasn’t changed a whole lot, but somehow it hasn’t lost any of its comedic powery. The judges announced their decisions: Chocolate Puddin’ gave him 10 million monkeys, The Pope gave him a thumbs down, and Al Franken straddled the fence with another 5.

Possum declared a tie, meaning it was up to America to decide. But before they got to the ballots, it was time to bring out a special surprise, last year’s winner Catastrophe (Brandon Johnson), an energy-filled DEF Comedy Jam comic who was topical, indie, and kept on asking the crowd to “give it up to” someone, causing about ten applause breaks during his performance.

Finally, Possum came back out with the finalists and announced the winner. Jerry O’Hearn was disqualified because he didn’t tell one joke during the contest, meaning America’s Best Comic was awarded by default to Jason Yellow. But wait a second. O’Hearn noticed something strange about Yellow. When asked why he was able to hear his name when Possum announced the winner, Jason responded with an Alien-esque projectile attack from his stomach. After some confusion, it was revealed that Jason Yellow wasn’t blind, deaf, or armless, meaning he was also disqualified from competition. With no winner declared, Al Franken took the stage, gave a short speech, and awarded the trophy to himself. On his way out, he told ex-co-writer Tom Davis to suck it.

At long last, this recap is over.

(Photos from Matt Besser’s website and this flickr account, all from past shows.)