Got A Condo Made O’Stone-a

March 24, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Art, Comedy, Entertainment, Middle East, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

Last night I read Born Standing Up, actor Steve Martin’s account of the seventeen years he spent making his way up the ladder of standup comedy. It’s a rather worthwhile book. In well-written prose, replete with many funny passages, Martin describes the process by which he rose from playing open-mike nights at obscure folk clubs around Los Angeles to filling stadiums across the country.

As many TNN readers know, Martin acquired his earliest showbiz experience in Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm near Garden Grove, the town in which he spent his teenage years, toward the end of Richard Nixon’s Vice Presidency. And RN figured in Martin’s struggling years as a standup; he mentions than when he played college campuses as an unknown in the early 1970s, he had only to mention the President’s name to be guaranteed a laugh. (In fact, the predictability of this response was one thing that led him to remove all political material from his act. Coincidentally or not, his career took off soon after.)

But I didn’t know that one of President Nixon’s decisions, toward the end of his Administration, led to one of the most celebrated episodes of Steve Martin’s comic career. It’s especially timely now, as the exhibition of the relics of Egypt’s King Tutankhamun finishes its run at San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum and gets ready to go to Discovery Channel’s Times Square showplace in New York.

It was in 1974 that President Nixon decided that the United States should respond to the successful display of Egyptian art in the Soviet Union with a truly memorable exhibit to tour the United States. After bringing up the idea during his visit to Egypt’s President Anwar al-Sadat a few weeks before his resignation, he urged Secretary of State Kissinger to work on bringing such an exhibit to these shores. Dr. Kissinger got in touch with the late Thomas Hoving, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the process was begun which, a couple of years later, resulted in the spectacularly successful first visit of King Tut and his relics to the United States – a visit which inspired Steve Martin to write that immortal tune which was introduced to the world on Saturday Night Live.

More than thirty years after he last came for a visit, the boy king is generating some more memories to last a lifetime for countless Americans, continuing a process that started with President Nixon’s proposal for a tour to generate income to help Egyptian museums on that summer day so long ago.

No Laughing Matter

November 15, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, Culture, Entertainment, Media, Popular Culture, TV | Leave a Comment 

“A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”

The philosophy of Chuckles  the Clown.

Comedy writer David Lloyd died last week at his home in Beverly Hills; he was 75.  A fitting epitaph was provided by Cheers co-creator Les Charles (for whom Lloyd wrote many episodes):  ”I do think he was the preeminent writer of television comedy.  If you consider how long his career was and how much he wrote for such really popular shows, he’s got to have been responsible for a record number of laughs in this world.”

Many of those laughs were concentrated in the seventh episode of the sixth season of the Mary Tyler Moore Show: “Chuckles Bites the Dust.”  In this script, the rarely seen Chuckles —host of a kid’s show at WJM, the Minneapolis TV station at which the series was set— meets a sudden and tragic end.

As Grand Marshal of the annual circus parade, he dresses as one of his many beloved characters Peter Peanut.  Station manager Lou Grant (Ed Asner) informs the shocked newsroom that, in this goober incarnation, Chuckles was shelled by a rogue elephant.

Here, from the show’s script, is that memorable moment:

               Lou enters, genuinely stricken.

                                     LOU
                              (Mutters)
                         Oh my! Oh, dear...!

                                     MARY
                         Mr. Grant...?

                                     LOU
                              (Really shaken)
                         Something terrible has happened.

                                     MURRAY
                              (Sober)
                         What is it, Lou?

                                     LOU
                         Someone we all know is dead.

                                     MARY
                         What! Mr. Grant--who?

                                     LOU
                              (Getting control)
                         No... I won't tell you about it now...
                         I don't want to upset you...

                                     MARY
                              (Frantic)
                         Mr. Grant!!...

                                     LOU
                         Where's Ted? I gotta tell Ted...

                                     MURRAY
                         He's on the air, Lou. What happened?
                         Who died? Tell us!

                                     LOU
                              (Still dazed)
                         Chuckles. Chuckles the Clown is dead.
                         It was a freak accident. He went to
                         the parade dressed as Peter Peanut...
                         and a rogue elephant tried to shell
                         him.

               They are both stunned.

For many years “Chuckles Bites the Dust” stood at the top of TV Guide’s list of the Top 100 Episodes of All Time.  (It has now been edged down to Number Three by Seinfeld’s 1992 “The Contest” and The Sopranos’ 1999 “College” episodes.)

Here’s TV Guide’s citation:

3. THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW
“Chuckles Bites the Dust” 10/25/1975
Take one unlucky peanut-clad clown, a rogue elephant, an irreverent newsroom, an Emmy-winning script and a virtuoso performance by one of TV’s greatest comedians, and you get one of the biggest laugh-out-loud sitcom episodes ever. When kiddie-show host Chuckles the Clown has his tragic culinary misadventure, it’s catnip to the WJM-TV crew—except for a disapproving Mary Richards. The comic payoff comes with Mary’s unsuccessful attempts to stifle her snickers during a eulogy celebrating Chuckles’ alter egos Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo and Auntie Yoo-Hoo. The pièce de genius: When the minister gives Mary permission to laugh, she begins to bawl. Amazingly, not everyone was on board, recalls star Mary Tyler Moore. The series’ usual director opted out of the episode “because he thought it was not in good taste,” says Moore. CBS also had misgivings about the show’s tone, she says, “but we knew it was something special. It’s not just about laughing at the funeral, but also the tensions and talking about it in the newsroom. It really is a uniquely funny episode.”

Here are links to the first, and second parts of “Chuckles Bites the Dust.”  And here is the final segment (which is even funnier if you watch the set up).   The audio is slightly out of sync but the laughs still arrive on time.

       Organ music stops and Reverend Burke steps to the lectern.

                                     BURKE
                         My friends... "Any man's death
                         diminishes me, because I am involved
                         in mankind. Therefore, ask not for
                         whom the bell tolls--it tolls for
                         thee."

                                     TED
                              (Sotto: scandalized)
                         Hey, Lou, he stole your poem!

                                     BURKE
                         Chuckles the Clown gave pleasure to
                         millions. The characters he created
                         will be remembered by children and
                         adults alike: Peter Peanut, Mr. Fee-
                         Fi-Fo, Billy Banana, and my particular
                         favorite, Aunt Yoo-Hoo.

               Mary stifles a laugh.

                                     BURKE
                         And not just for the laughter they
                         provided--there was always some deeper
                         meaning to whatever Chuckles did.
                         Remember Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo's little catch
                         phrase, remember how when his arch
                         rival Senor Caboom would hit him
                         with the giant cucumber and knock
                         him down? Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo would always
                         pick himself up, dust himself off
                         and say, "I hurt my foo-foo."

               Mary again stifles a laugh. The others in the row glare at
               her.

                                     BURKE
                         Life's a lot like that. From time to
                         time we all fall down and hurt our
                         foo-foo's.

               Mary again stifles a laugh. Other people turn to look at
               her.

                                     BURKE
                         If only we could all deal with it as
                         simple and bravely and honestly as
                         Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo. And what did Chuckles
                         ask in return? Not much--in his own
                         words--"A little song, a little dance,
                         a little seltzer down your pants."

               Mary has great difficulty in stifling herself here. Many
               people turn to look at her.

                                     BURKE
                              (Looking right at
                              Mary)
                         Excuse me, young lady... yes you...
                         would you stand up please?

               Mary, with no alternative, stands up.

                                     BURKE
                         You feel like laughing, don't you?
                         Don't try to stop yourself. Go ahead,
                         laugh out loud. Don't you see? Nothing
                         could have made Chuckles happier. He
                         lived to make people laugh. He found
                         tears offensive, deeply offensive.
                         He hated to see people cry. Go ahead,
                         my dear--laugh.

               As Mary bursts into tears, we:

                                                                   FADE OUT

                                      END OF ACT TWO

Bruce Weber in The New York Times and Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times offered excellent obituaries. One of David Lloyd’s sons, Christopher, is co-creator of Modern Family —- the superb sitcom which, along with FlashForward, will save the 2009 season from the trash heap of TV history.

CNN Leaves It There

October 13, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Comedy, News media | 3 Comments 

The revolution manqué has started to devour its own children.  But in a world where so much time is spent automatically bashing Fox News, it’s bracing to see at least some spillover skepticism aimed in CNN’s direction.  Of course the target here is fatuity not ideology.

Laughing Matters

October 13, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Barack Obama, Comedy | Leave a Comment 

Laughing Matters

October 11, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Afpak, Barack Obama, Comedy, History, Humor, Obama administration | 2 Comments 

On Thursday the Daily Show turned its attention to the news about Afghanistan.  Jon Stewart’s deconstruction of Speaker Pelosi’s body language is inspired.  And the profile of General McChrystal —”he’s as strong as a grizzly bear and better at catching salmon; his mother was a yeti and his father a ‘68 Camaro”— covers some serious ground.

And this week’s issue of Time features a Fun with Photoshop Gallery of “Obama’s Other Awards” (in addition to his Heisman Trophy already noted here) — including an MTV Music Video Award, a Pulitzer Prize, an Oscar, and a Cy Young Award:

Laughing Matters

October 11, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Comedy, Obama administration | Leave a Comment 

Last night’s cold open. Less edgy, less risky and, perhaps not coincidentally, less funny:

Laughing Matters

October 5, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Comedy | Leave a Comment 

Saturday Night Live’s cold open did not go unnoticed on the Sunday morning talk shows — providing the basis of this week’s discussion about whether  and/or how much the bloom is off the rose.

Like Darrell Hammond with Bill Clinton and Will Ferrell with W —and last season’s controversy to the contrary— Fred Armisen has now planted his flag on this particular POTUS.

Reason To Believe

September 26, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, Entertainment, Humor, Internet, Lifestyle, Sports | Leave a Comment 

Dude Perfect is a collective of six roommates at Texas A+M who have developed what you might call a G-rated family-friendly frat boy version of Jackass.

In their expanding cottage industry, there are no visible tattoos, and nothing is stapled to anything else.  But they manage to retain  a sufficient quota of don’t-try-this-at-home stone craziness to keep the parents worried and the kids engaged.

The question on some of the more than 3 million minds that have viewed the group’s videos —including “the world’s longest basketball shot”—  is whether these dudes are, well, maybe just a tad too perfect.  And the dudes consider it the greatest compliment that their doings are so derring that people aren’t sure they can believe their own eyes.

Here’s the view from the third deck of Kyle Field at College Station:

And here’s the feat viewed from the field:

Based on their other videos, there’s no reason to believe that this one is doctored. (Nor, of course, is there any reason to believe that this one didn’t follow seventeen thousand four hundred and seventy-nine prior unsuccessful attempts at this particular stunt — and what difference would that make if this one is legit?)

The name derives from the moment when Sean, setting up the camera on the railing of Tyler’s backyard deck,  looked thorough the lens and saw his buddy in the center of the frame. “Dude perfect” was his response and the rest is history.

On their impressive website, they introduce themselves this way:

Ultimately, Dude Perfect is a group of college guys that follows Jesus. We didn’t plan on this type of interest in our videos and we’re incredibly grateful. We want to use this platform for something bigger than us.

Right now, that something bigger is the sponsorship of children in Africa through the organization Compassion International.

They started out betting lunches on trick shots in the backyard.  Eventually (“after quite a few free lunches went the bearded guy’s direction”) they decided to make a video and upload it to YouTube.  In the last several months, they’ve broken out with appearances on Good Morning, America (whose computer analysts couldn’t guarantee that the videos are unedited but couldn’t find any edits or figure out how any might have been made) and in Sports Illustrated.

Although they each have definite personalities that emerge in the videos, the ID caption on their website photo reads: “from left to right: this guy, that guy, the bearded one, the tall guy, the next tallest guy, the guy who looks just like the other guy.”

Larry Gelbart, 1928-2009

September 11, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Comedy, Entertainment, Humor, In Memoriam | Leave a Comment 

As I write, either on TV Land or the Hallmark Channel, the inevitable strains of Johnny Mandel’s “Suicide Is Painless” are beginning, the chopper is coming down, and the men and women of the 4077th are getting ready for another session of OR drama and off-hours hijinks. Sooner or later Cpl. Klinger will be showing up in his heels and skirt, dog tags clinking around his neck in lieu of pearls. (There’s plenty of M*A*S*H* trivia on Wikipedia so I’ll just limit myself to mentioning that Jamie Farr, who played Klinger, really served in the Army in Korea, albeit a few years after the end of the war in 1953, and that the dog tags he wore when stationed there were the very same ones that were seen on all eleven seasons of the show and, of course, in today’s reruns.)

The difference is that tonight, Larry Gelbart, the main creator of M*A*S*H* the series, will not be around. He died in Los Angeles this morning at the age of 81.

Gelbart had a long and successful career in most of the branches of entertainment that involve comedy. He got his start working on Danny Thomas’s radio show, moved on to television when he worked on Caesar’s Hour (the followup to Your Show Of Shows), co-wrote the book for the hit Broadway show A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and wrote the screenplays for Oh, God and Tootsie. He always had a knack for the offhand, rib-tickling line. (My favorite is from Forum, when Zero Mostel, as a slave sometime in the first century A.D, examines a bottle of wine and hesitantly remarks: “1 was a good year, right?” This was cut during the show’s out-of-town tryouts because it was thought some theatergoers might think it blasphemous, but restored in the film.)

But it was a trip to Korea with Bob Hope, when the latter was entertaining the troops for Christmas, that gave Gelbart the background he needed over two decades later to make a success of the project that came his way in 1971: the adaptation of Robert Altman’s antiwar comedy M*A*S*H* as a television series. The show premiered in September 1972, while the Vietnam War was still going on. During its first season, it got only middling ratings, but its network, CBS, decided to stick with it. During the summer of 1973, viewers looking for something to watch besides Watergate coverage.started to tune into the reruns, and by the fall of that year, as the fortunes of President Nixon declined, those of M*A*S*H* steadily rose, until it entered the top 10, then top 5, of the ratings, and never left.

Over the next decade, the show became, as they say, an institution. Gelbart was its mainstay during its first four seasons (back in the days when Wayne Rogers was Trapper John, before that Hunnicutt guy showed up); he wrote nearly every episode of the series during that time. He smoothed the abrasive edges of the characters as they appeared in the Altman film, and the outlines of all the supporting characters – Father Mulcahy, Klinger, Radar, Maj. Burns, and “Hot Lips” Houlihan – did not change much from the way in which he (and the cast members) delineated them. His “Hawkeye” Pierce was more Grouchoesque and less annoyingly earnest than was the case after Alan Alda wrested more control of the series following Gelbart’s departure.

Well, I see that, like many people of my generation, at the drop of a pin I can launch into as complete an analysis of early M*A*S*H* as the next person – and I only used to watch every other episode of the show in those days, since I was finishing high school and starting college. But my point is that anyone who was around back then can attest that the show was a big, big part of American life – both during its original run and through the remainder of the 1980s.

James Poniewozik at Time.com lovingly recalls how he found common ground with his blue-collar father (a cross between Archie Bunker and Hank Hill, by his account, who also “grip[ed} at Richard Nixon on the TV news during Watergate”) when they watched M*A*S*H* together. As Poniewozik says, the show was anti-war in tone throughout its run, but it was not anti-soldier.  Like innumerable shows before it, it poked fun at pomposity and hypocrisy among officers (both as personified 24-7 by Frank Burns and periodically by visiting generals). But for all his perplexity, McLean Stevenson as Col. Blake was a decent, warm man doing the best for his unit that he could, and Harry Morgan as Col. Potter, of course, embodied the best of the American officer corps – firm, yet always thoughtful and understanding.

Regular TNN readers will remember the occasional discussion here last year of the role that the movie Bonnie And Clyde plays in Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland, in which he presents it as emblematic of the mood of rebellion in the late 1960s.  As he works on his new book, which takes the story of American life from RN’s re-election in November 1972 until the triumph of Ronald Reagan eight years later, he might want to take a look at the way in which M*A*S*H* helped to inspire better understanding of the American military during the 1970s, and helped to bring about reconciliation after the traumas of the Vietnam era. A quarter-century after the final episode of the show aired, that finale still has the highest Nielsen rating on record – 125 million people tuned in for it, more than for any Super Bowl or even any American Idol finale. And Larry Gelbart was the indispensable man in that story.

I Just Flew In From District Court, And Boy….

August 20, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Comedy, Hillary Clinton | Leave a Comment 

From 1993 until 2001, few figures were more prominent among the critics of the Administration then in charge than Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch, who, during those years, launched eighteen civil suits against the Clinton White House, and was often to be found on Fox News during its early years, speaking of litigation to come.

After the 42nd President and his spouse moved to Westchester County, however, less was heard from the Florida-based attorney. He made some waves early in 2003 when, perhaps in the spirit of bipartisanship, he joined the Sierra Club in a suit against Vice President Cheney, seeking the release of documents concerning energy policy. But soon afterward he left the organization he’d founded to launch an unsuccessful campaign for the Senate in Florida. In the six years since, he’s turned up in the news occasionally – in 2006 when he sued Judicial Watch charging mismanagement on the part of his successors, and earlier this year when it was reported that his new book, having been lost in the shuffle at HarperCollins after the departure of Judith Regan who’d acquired it, was to be issued by a smaller Florida press.

But this morning’s Washington Times reports that Klayman has just undertaken an entirely new career – as a stand-up comedian, currently performing at the Funky Buddha Lounge in Boca Raton. The competition in this field in South Florida is pretty stiff – ranging from veterans of the circuit like Dave Attell and Greg Giraldo to, well, really old comics like Jack Carter and London Lee. But it is true that Mort Sahl is seen in West Palm Beach and St. Petersburg and Orlando less often since he started doing things like teaching at Claremont McKenna College. So there seems to be an opening for Klayman to try his hand at political humor.

The lawyer-turned-humorist informed the Times’s Jennifer Harper that he thinks of his new enterprise as being in the tradition of his 1990s work: “I have not given up as ‘freedom fighter, but with the Obama/Clinton crowd in power it’s better to laugh than cry. Besides, the Clintons always tried to portray my lawsuits as a joke.” He promises to take his act to LA and New York if things go well in Florida. Wonder if there’s a chance that he’ll show up at the next Comedy Central Roast.

Laughing Matters

July 31, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Comedy, Humor | Leave a Comment 

So here I am, having just judged the Daily Show as having jumped the shark by substituting predictable polemic for snarky satire, posting yet another Daily Show clip for your comedy delectation.

So what’s up with that?  Was I hasty?  Did I jump…the gun? Or was I even —just possibly—possibly maybe— wrong?

In a word: No.

But, that said, here’s last night’s clever Moment of Zen:

Laughing Matters

July 30, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, Humor, International Affairs, News media | Leave a Comment 

As last night’s clunkily polemical opening segment demonstrated, the Daily Show has, indeed, jumped the shark.

But John Oliver’s piece was based on a very clever premise:

And the interview with John Bolton was text book TV:

Laughing Matters

July 28, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Comedy, Humor | Leave a Comment 

The bad news is that both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have, over the last few months, decisively jumped the shark.  Maybe they changed writers; or maybe the old writers just ran out of snark and irony and steam, and decided that polemics were as funny as (and infinitely easier to write than) satire.

The good news is that even a broken clock is occasionally right.  So here is a Daily Show bumper crop from yesterday’s edition.  The first is Jon Stewart’s riff on Sarah Palin’s curious gubernatorial swan song; the second is his extended interview with Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol.

Magic Number Or Misery For The Democrats?

June 30, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Comedy, Congress | 2 Comments 

This morning the Minnesota Supreme Court handed down its decision in favor of Al Franken in his eight-month battle with incumbent Senator Norm Coleman over the narrow margin of the election to determine the occupant of Minnesota’s seat in Capitol Hill’s upper chamber. Soon after, Coleman announced that, instead of taking his battle to the level of the Federal courts, he would concede defeat, leaving the way open for the onetime Stuart Smalley to take his seat.

(Richard A. Baker, the Historian of the Senate, was quoted as saying that Franken’s swearing-in would mark the first time a professional comedian had ever become a Senator. It’s hard to read that statement with a straight face. For example, for two terms in the 1950s and the 1960s one of our Southern states was represented by a very amiable gentleman, now deceased, who did not make much of a legislative mark, but was renowned in some circles for his habit of throwing empty bourbon bottles out of the window of his quarters in the Senate Office Building after consuming their contents. If Rick Perlstein can guess who that was, he gets a free steak dinner from me.)

On the surface, Franken’s victory looks like the ultimate triumph for the Democrats. Thanks to Arlen Specter’s defection from the Republican side of the aisle they now hold 60 seats, the supposed filibuster-proof majority. But Franken’s arrival, as no doubt many Democratic senators – perhaps even one as obtuse as Harry Reid – are aware, constitutes a mixed blessing at best.

As I said once or twice at TNN earlier this year, Franken’s career has been spent doing and saying things more or less antithetical to the usual background of a United States Senator. For well over thirty years he made his living being provocative and, not infrequently, insulting. The snide, snarky remark is sure to come more readily to his lips than genial words of consensus. Once he goes on C-Span and opens his mouth – and, indeed, he will be one of the Senators handling the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor – he is sure, sooner or later, to come up with utterances that will provide prime fodder for Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and all their colleagues in the worlds of talk radio and cable TV commentary. Before long, even our Vice President might seem the model of thoughtfulness and discretion.

So a major task facing the Democrats, if they want to improve their numbers come 2010 rather than lose seats, will be to find some way to muzzle old Al at the right moments – before the watchword across the media becomes: “….and doggone it, people don’t like him.”

Moonwalking With Steve Martin

June 27, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Comedy, In Memoriam | 2 Comments 

At the New Yorker, actor and comedian Steve Martin writes a humorous and affectionate tribute to the late Michael Jackson:

As a dancer, Michael Jackson was great. He was like Fred Astaire. This video, a parody of the “Billie Jean” video, was done for “The New Show,” which was a prime-time NBC program that Lorne Michaels did in 1983-1984, when he wasn’t producing “Saturday Night Live.” This was the opening—it was the first piece on the first episode of the show. Michael Jackson had recently done what I consider to be his life-changing performance on the Grammy Awards, where he did the Moonwalk and threw his hat offstage. He was just brilliant. Then the “Billie Jean” video came out. And this was a parody of that.

I’m not sure whose idea it was; it might have been Lorne’s. Pat Birch choreographed it. The hard move was that little leg twist that he did. You really have to throw your leg. I did it a thousand times in about three days. And a couple of weeks later I noticed—er, I have a pain here. The pain lasted about two years, then it went away on its own.

Here is Martin’s priceless attempt:

The Amazing Colossal Presidency

June 19, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Book Review, Comedy, History, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Presidents, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

In April of 1979, a week or so after the nuclear-near-disaster at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Saturday Night Live did a sketch featuring Dan Akroyd as President Jimmy Carter. Playing on the idea that Carter had a background in engineering and nuclear physics, Akroyd insisted on visiting a place called cryptically, “Two Mile Island,” and his character was exposed to contaminated water.

Rosalyn Carter: Where is Jimmy? I have a right to see him!
Ross Denton: Mrs. Carter, the president is receiving special treatment right now.
Rosalyn Carter: What kind of special treatment? Why can’t I see him?
Ross Denton: Mrs. Carter, this is Dr. Edna Casey. Perhaps she can explain better than I what has happened to the president.
Dr. Edna Casey: Mrs. Carter, your husband was exposed to massive doses of radiation. Now this has affected the entire cell structure of his body and greatly accelerated the growth process.
Rosalyn Carter: Well, what does that mean?
Dr. Edna Casey: It means, Mrs. Carter, your husband, President Carter, has become THE AMAZING COLOSSAL PRESIDENT.
Rosalyn Carter: Well how big is he?
Dr. Edna Casey: Well Mrs. Carter, it’s difficult to comprehend just how big he is but to give you some idea, we’ve asked comedian Rodney Dangerfield to come along today to help explain it to you. Rodney?
Ross Denton: Rodney, can you please tell us, how big is the president?
Rodney Dangerfield: Oh, he’s a big guy – I’ll tell you that – he’s a big guy. I tell you he’s so big, I saw him sitting in the George Washington Bridge dangling his feet in the water! He’s a big guy!

It was a funny bit. But it’s not so funny to see life imitate art these days.

The founding fathers and framers of the constitution were very concerned about vesting too much energy in the American chief executive. In his book, The Cult Of The Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion To Executive Power, Gene Healy reminds us that many these days see it as “the president’s job to protect us from harm, to ‘grow the economy,’ to spread democracy and American ideals abroad, and even to heal spiritual malaise.” In fact, this job description is completely foreign to what was created back in the day. “If the public expects the president to deal with all national problems, physical or spiritual,” he writes, “then the president will seek – or seize – the power necessary to handle that responsibility.”

In other words, an amazing colossal presidency.

So, how did we go from what the constitution meant to where we are now? The trouble began around the turn of the 20th century and the Progressive movement. And it was very much an equal opportunity problem – with Democrats and Republicans to blame.

A careful look at the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson yields abundant clues about how we got here. TR was a Republican and a strenuous occupant of the White House – and in many ways, admirably so. He is seen by many today as a hero, though it is likely that his personal qualities inspire people more than his actual policies or approach to the presidency itself. He was a man of courage and confidence. His post-presidential speech about “The Man In The Arena” is one of my favorites.

Mr. Roosevelt, however – all his wonderful traits notwithstanding – dramatically expanded the role of the presidency and with it the expectations of Americans. Then later, Woodrow Wilson picked up where Teddy left off and transformed the office into one that became, in fact, an amazing colossal presidency. And it wasn’t a good thing.

The day after his election in November of 1912, Wilson told his party chairman: “Before we proceed, I want it understood that I owe you nothing. Remember that God ordained that I should be the next President of the United States.” I think he may have showered in contaminated water that very morning. He was, after all, from Jersey.

Wilson had written a book back in 1908 entitled Constitutional Government. In it, he talked about his views of the presidency: “The President is at liberty, both in law, and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.” His administration was living proof of this. This so-called “Progressive” man was a civil liberties wrecking crew, though revered by most Democrats today as a hero – even a saint. The nation under Wilson, and at the end of The Great War, was as close to totalitarianism as it had ever been. An editorial in The New Republic on November 16, 1918, gives a snapshot of what the country looked like, and this periodical clearly saw all of it as great:

The whole issue hinges on social control. For forty years we have been widening the sphere of this control, subordinating the individual to the group and the group to society. Without such control, vastly magnified, we should not have been able to carry on the war. We conscripted lives, property, and services; we took over railroads, telegraphs and other economic instruments. We fixed wages, prices, the quantity of coal, power, labor or transportation a man might command, and the quantity of food we might consume. All this we did on the narrowest of legal bases, for no one dared question our power.

It did happen here – thanks to an amazing colossal presidency.

In between Teddy and Woody came William Howard Taft. Now largely dismissed by historians as a presidential failure, what it is missed is how much of a voice of reason he was. Roosevelt’s handpicked successor ratified by the voters in 1908, Taft and TR eventually had a falling out and conducted a party-dividing battle for the 1912 Republican nomination. Taft won that race, but Teddy decided to run as a third-party candidate that November, effectively conceding the overall election to Mr. Wilson.

It was humiliating for Taft and while in the political wilderness he wrote a book about the presidency entitled, Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers. What he had to say back then needs to be read, and read again by Americans today, in this new age of the amazing colossal presidency:

Ascribing an undefined residuum of power to the President is an unsafe doctrine and…it might lead under emergencies to results of an arbitrary character, doing irremediable injustice to private right. The mainspring of such a view is that the executive is charged with responsibility for the welfare of all the people in a general way, that he is to play the part of a universal Providence and set all things right, and that anything that in his judgment will help the people he ought to do, unless he is expressly forbidden not to do it. The wide field of action that this would give to the executive, one can hardly limit.

Warren Harding appointed William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1921, the only job he ever really wanted. Harding also undid much of the damage Mr. Wilson had done to the economy, not to mention liberty itself.

Sure, Harding had his share of personal problems. And Taft was not too great on the campaign trail. But compared to some of the amazing colossal presidents we have had, I think the men who served before and after Wilson look better than the man in the middle, and even in some ways, though it’s hard to admit, than the man in the arena.

Laughing Matters

June 12, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, International Affairs, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

On Wednesday night’s broadcast of the Colbert Report from Camp Victory in Baghdad, Steven Colbert interviewed  Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.  The Deputy PM’s academic training was in the UK; he spent some time in Washington as spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.  He rolls with the Report’s quirky flow, nicely touches all the bases, and makes a strong impression.

Comedy Isn’t Pretty — And Often Not Even Funny

June 12, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Comedy, Entertainment, Sarah Palin | 6 Comments 

After five years of working for and with David Letterman at Late Night, my respect and affection for him are pretty darn close to unbounded.

But, of course, that doesn’t mean that I think everything he does is OK — much less that every joke he tells is funny.

A recent unfortunate —and uncharacteristic— case in point is the small run —in the opening monologue and the Top Ten List— of marginally tasteless and arguably unfunny of material about Sarah Palin on Monday night’s show.

The hook was the Governor’s highly-publicized whirlwind trip to New York that had received saturation news coverage over the preceding weekend.

On Sunday’s itinerary was a family outing to the new Yankee Stadium with Rudy and Judith Giuliani.  And that’s where the trouble started.

Then, as you look at it, insult was added to injury a couple of minutes later with Number Two on the Top Ten List from the Home Office in Wahoo, Nebraska.

TOP TEN HIGHLIGHTS OF SARAH PALIN’S TRIP TO NEW YORK

10. Visited New York landmarks she normally only sees from Alaska.

9. Laughed at all the crazy-looking foreigners entering the U.N.

8. Made moose jerky on Rachael Ray

7. Keyed Tina Fey’s car

6.  After a wink and a nod, ended up with a kilo of crack

5.  Made coat out of New York City rat pelts

4.  Sat in for Kelly Ripa. Regis couldn’t tell the difference.

3. Finally met one of those Jewish people Mel Gibson’s always talking about.

2. Bought makeup at Blomingdale’s to update her “slutty flight attendant” look

1. Especially enjoyed not appearing on Letterman

I know at first hand and from considerable personal experience and observation that Dave is —despite his ostensibly prickly personality and self-proclaimed dumb guy persona— a highly intelligent, thoughtful, considerate, and sensitive fellow.

None of the jokes in question are very funny —with the exception of Numbers Ten and Six it has to be one of the lamest Top Ten lists in a long while— but that’s the law of averages, not the law of unintended consequences.  And I can assure you that the notion that he intentionally set out to insult or demean a pre-teen is, simply, off the table.  (The technicality is that the Palin daughter present at the ball game turned out to be 14 year old Willow rather than 18 year old single mom Bristol.)

To the extent that there may have been any operating principle behind what happened, I suspect it’s hiding in plain sight in the Number One Highlight of Sarah Palin’s Trip to New York: “Especially enjoyed not appearing on Letterman.”

There has been bad blood —entirely and gratuitously McCain (and by indirection McCain-Palin) generated— between the 2008 GOP presidential ticket and The Late Show with David Letterman.  Even after Senator McCain admitted screwing up and tried to set things right, he failed to deliver on a promised joint appearance  with his running mate.

To most people these events might seem like tempests in teapots.  But having been there and done that I know how seriously Dave takes his show and treats his audience.  Besides, he comes from a time and a place where, if you make a promise, you’re expected to keep it.

What would otherwise have been a minor blip noted only by those with highly sensitive blip monitors, has been turned into a brouhaha bordering on a cause celebre by the Palins — who have effectively charged Dave with pedophilia.  Whether this was done in a misguided attempt to make a point or in order to further an agenda will be the subject of debate for some time.

I think they made a mistake in not accepting Dave’s apology and moving on.  Partly because I think it would have been the right thing to do; and partly for the reasons put forward by Margaret Carlson on today’s Daily Beast:

…picking a fight with a trained comedian, refusing to accept his apology and continuing to battle after the white flag is shown reveals a complete lack of political sophistication.

Letterman apologized at unprecedented length for a comment about Palin’s recent trip to New York. There was, he said, “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee, during the seventh inning stretch, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” To which the Palins shot back: “Laughter incited by sexually perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is… disgusting.”

Who said anything about a 14-year-old girl? Not Letterman. That would be… the Palins. It turns out it was Willow, not Bristol, who went to the baseball game. But who knew that until the Palins brought this “disgusting” comment so painful to their younger daughter to the attention of the 300 million people not tuned into David Letterman?

Letterman’s joke was indeed tasteless—he even owed A-Rod an apology. But I doubt there was another soul in the world who didn’t understand the joke to be about the older Palin daughter, who lapped Jamie Lynn Spears as the most famous pregnant teen in the world once she was trotted out at the Republican National Convention in August. Not that Bristol should have been left at home in the dark, but if you want a “zone of privacy” around your daughter, do you have her appear on stage with her then-fiancée hinting at prospects of a White House wedding waving to the crowd like Charles and Diana of the Klondike?

The Gray Folks At The Gray Lady

June 11, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, Internet, News media | Leave a Comment 

The poobahs at One Times Square were understandably wary when the Daily Show’s Jason Jones came a-calling.

But even taking that into account they seem every bit as bland, bleached, and beached, as their daily product.

Laughing Matters

June 9, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Barack Obama, Comedy, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

This week the Colbert Report is broadcasting from one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad.  Last night’s first show is worth watching.  

A highlight is the interview with General Ray Odierno, the Commanding General of the Multi-National Force–Iraq, and the amusing (and skillfully executed and edited) turn it takes.

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