Oh dear. It’s time once again for the awkward, occasionally humiliating ritual that is the annual Funniest Celebrity in Washington Contest. The very notion that Washington has “celebrities” who are in any measurable way “funny” is hard enough to swallow, but this year’s line-up looks to be stacked with even more potential for cringe-worthy one-liners than usual.

Former presidential candidate and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr top the bill of competing celebrities, with Huckabee the clear front-runner in that he’s at least highly likable. Other contestants include Grover Norquist, who has somehow earned a reputation for being funny even though he isn’t (he also told jokes, bad ones, at the launch party of the D.C. version of The Onion), Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA; no idea if he’s funny), radio personality Jim Bohannon (who?), President of the Motion Picture Association of America Dan Glickman (hopefully he’ll have some screenwriters pen his jokes), President of the Independent Women’s forum Michelle Bernard (your guess is as good as mine), Hardball’s David Shuster (willing to believe he might be sort of angry-funny, especially if he goes there about the Clintons again), CNN Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre (really hard to picture that) and Al Jazeera Radio host Riz Khan (no clue).

So we admit we’re intrigued by this year’s line-up, and we’ll have a reviewer there to give you the blow by blow the next day. But intrigued enough to suggest you pay a whopping $200 per person (it’s a charity event, you see, benefiting VSA arts)? Not unless you’re independently wealthy.

The 15th annual Funniest Celebrity in Washington Contest takes place Wednesday, September 10 at 7 p.m. at the DC Improv.