Obama's missing punchline revealed

An image of a crude, kindergarten-level drawing supposedly drawn by US President Barack Obama can be revealed as the missing punchline in a joke that fell flat in a big speech last weekend.

Obama had attempted to poke fun at himself at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington.

He joked that his predecessor George W Bush's well-publicised but amateurish paintings had inspired him to find his own artistic side.

He when he waited for an example of his work to show up on a projector screen, it never appeared due to a technology malfunction.

"The joke doesn't work without the slide .... Oh well, assume that it was funny," he said.

NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander has since posted the missing slide on his Twitter page.

"The punchline America missed: finally, the elusive #WHCD slide showing off Obama's work of art," he tweeted.