US releases video of Obama with Cuba's best-known comedian

HAVANA (AP) — In a direct appeal to the Cuban people's sense of humor, the White House has released a video of President Barack Obama joking with the country's most famous comedian a day before the president makes a historic trip to the island.

Luis Silva plays Panfilo, an elderly character on a wildly popular show that often uses biting humor to comment on social reality and lampoon the failings of Cuba's government and centrally planned economy.

Silva's wildly popular Monday night show "Vivir del cuento" — roughly "Surviving By Your Wits" in Spanish — is unusually edgy programming for Cuban state television, known more for sports and dry public affairs shows, unadventurous news and roundtables, and recycled telenovelas, sitcoms and U.S. crime serials.

In a country that has little tolerance for open dissent, the show's humor strikes a chord with Cubans fed up with corruption and scarcity that can make daily life a slog, and the program's jokes are repeated and discussed on Tuesday mornings in the local equivalent of water-cooler banter.