Move aside, John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet. As far as national comedians are concerned, you just aren’t that funny anymore.

It’s been a while since the two long-shot Democratic presidential candidates from Colorado had their turn in the satirical spotlight, when they drew barbs from late-night talk show hosts, popular comics and online humor publications alike.

The mostly gentle ribbing had focused on Bennet and Hickenlooper’s status as underdogs in a crowded field of candidates vying for the chance to take on then-President Donald Trump. 

“Michael Bennet apologizes after accidentally introducing himself as Tim Ryan,” The Onion drolly suggested a few months into Bennet’s run, name-checking his senatorial colleague from Ohio in a joke about the flock of nondescript, middle-aged white guys who took the stage at the primary’s first debate.

A subset of TV humorists also yucked it up, middle-school style, over Hickenlooper’s lengthy, somewhat cumbersome last name, with one comedian suggesting it sounded like the kind of old-fashioned disease that ravaged Westward-bound American settlers and another wondering if he might be a Dr. Seuss character.

Good times!

But it didn’t last.

Hickenlooper, a former two-term governor, withdrew and went on to win election to the U.S. Senate last cycle after about six months on the presidential campaign trail. Bennet, who is seeking a third full term in the U.S. Senate this fall, made it as far as New Hampshire before he dropped his White House bid following a poor finish in that state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

The pair have since been supplanted as the Colorado-based butts of national political wisecracks by Lauren Boebert, the outspoken, gun-toting Republican restaurant owner from Rifle, who quickly racked up more jocular mentions than the two Democrats had, combined.

Within a year of being sworn into office, Boebert had even ascended to that pinnacle of political comedy when she was portrayed by a cast member of Saturday Night Live in a skit that drew a scathing thumbs-down from the congresswoman.

Recently, though, the reigning queen of Colorado civic comedy has gotten some company in the nation’s guffaw factories from fellow Republican Ron Hanks, a first-term state representative from Fremont County and one of two GOP candidates running in next month’s U.S. Senate primary.

Attentive observers noted that Hanks made his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it debut on the nationwide, late-night stage with his inclusion on May 11 in an ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live bit about contemporary Republican candidates’ habit of shooting things up on camera.

Both Republicans are facing primaries next month – Boebert is competing with state Sen. Don Coram of Montrose for the nomination in the Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District, and Hanks is going up against construction company owner Joe O’Dea for the opportunity to take on Bennet – so their tenure as political punch lines could be fleeting, though however the vote turns out, both remain in their current offices until January.

Boebert has been a mainstay on the send-up stage since shortly after taking office, after declaring she intended to carry a handgun to work in Washington, D.C., and then repeatedly setting off metal detectors on the way onto the House floor.

After the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Boebert drew shout-outs from several late-night TV hosts and The Onion for tweeting about the location of lawmakers and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the melee.

“Some Democrats in Congress are worried their colleagues might kill them,” read a headline displayed by the host of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before the comedian grouped Boebert with a half dozen other Republican lawmakers who had challenged Trump’s election loss.

“She’s the reverse Paul Revere! ‘Hey British, the Americans are hiding, the Americans are hiding, they went that-away! Get them!’ ” Colbert said over a photo of the Colorado congresswoman.

Boebert, for her part, has vehemently rejected suggestions she did anything wrong on Jan. 6, when she shared widely available information with her social media followers.

That didn’t stop the namesake host of NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers from devoting a segment a week later to Boebert’s impassioned complaint “call[ing] bullcrap!” on House Democrats’ efforts to impeach Trump a second time.

“I didn’t know you could invoke your congressional power of invoking playground law,” Meyers said. “Not only do I call bullcrap,” he added, suggesting what Boebert might say, “but I regret to inform the speaker that the impeachment has indeed bounced off us and now sticks to you!”

Boebert has since become a favorite target of Meyers, who skewered her earlier this year for her gaffe-laden comparison of President Joe Biden to “Prince John of — Prince John,” before roasting Boebert and her congressional colleague from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, for heckling Biden during the State of the Union speech.

Last fall, before she was actually featured on Saturday Night Live, Kimmel aired an extended bit that showed people videos Boebert had recorded and then asked whether they thought SNL had “gone too far” in its satiric depiction of the politician.

“Some of these videos she makes are so unbelievably over-the-top, it’s hard to believe this person exists. They seem like sketches form Saturday Night Live,” Kimmel said. “Wouldn’t you know it, we found all sorts of people who thought her real videos were written comedy bits.”

“I think she would feel it was too far and be offended by it,” one passer-by said after watching a clip of Boebert calling for a “full investigation into just how many puppies were eaten alive on Fauci’s watch.” She was referring to an urban legend involving Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“It’s embarrassing for her; it’s embarrassing for the county to see. They did go too far,” a woman said after watching a clip of Boebert recounting how she delivered one of her children in the cab of a pickup truck.

A month later, SNL cast members Chloe Fineman and Cecily Strong, playing Boebert and Greene, respectively, showed up during the show’s Dec. 11 opening sketch, wielding prop rifles and proclaiming their thoughts on gun rights. After Strong’s Greene compared the COVID-19 vaccination program to communism, Fineman’s Boebert concluded: “So, Merry Christmas. And remember, guns don’t kill people. People, people, people.”

Boebert was not amused.

Calling the sketch “poorly acted,” she ripped the “no-name actress” who played her and criticized the comedians’ “poor trigger disciple” in a series of tweets.

“BTW, when are they moving SNL over to CNN to die out of irrelevance?” Boebert tweeted, adding, “The right doesn’t need an SNL. We could just turn on CNN and MSNBC which are parodies of themselves at this point.”

Hanks made his appearance in a parody of a commercial for this year’s Republican candidates introduced by Kimmel during his show’s May 11 monologue.

“The issues themselves don’t matter much anymore,” Kimmel said. “What matters is that you make sure everyone knows that you are pro-life – pro-human life, with notable exceptions.”

In a menacing voice, the faux political ad’s narrator takes over.

“Inflation is skyrocketing. Putin is out of control. And Brandon is asleep at the wheel. But the GOP has a plan. And that plan is – guns,” he says as snippets from real ads fly by, depicting GOP candidates shooting things.

About midway through, Hanks appears on screen in a clip from a campaign video and says, “I’m Ron Hanks, and I approve this message.” He then takes aim and fires a round at a copier machine labeled to represent election equipment, which explodes on impact.

“Your Republican Party 2022,” the narrator concludes. “Sun’s out. Gun’s out.”

It’s a far cry from The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah wondering aloud if “Hickenlooper” could be the name of a corny local restaurant “where all the waiters have those vests with buttons on them,” but, as Boebert pointed out after her SNL portrayal, political humor isn’t what it used to be.