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Al Franken Filmography
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Al Franken: Career
Franken was one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live, and received three Emmy Awards and seven Emmy nominations for television writing and producing for his work there. He created characters such as self-help guru Stuart Smalley and schtick such as proclaiming the 1980's to be the "Al Franken Decade". Franken was associated with
SNL for more than 15 years and in 2002 interviewed former Vice President Al Gore while in character as Smalley.
Franken's most notorious
SNL sketch may have been "A Limo for the Lamo," a commentary delivered by Franken near the end of the 1979–80 season. Franken mocked the controversial president of NBC, Fred Silverman, describing him as "a total unequivocal failure" and displayed a chart showing the poor ratings of NBC programs. According to some associates of the show, Silverman's anger over the sketch prompted him to abandon negotiations with the show's creator Lorne Michaels and seek a different producer for the sixth season of
SNL.
Besides having written numerous books (including Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot
), Franken co-wrote (with Tom Davis) the screenplay for The Coneheads TV show. He also wrote the original screenplay and starred in the theatrical flop, Stuart Saves His Family
. He created and starred in the TV show LateLine that suffered low ratings, causing it to be cancelled halfway through its second season with only a total 12 of the 19 episodes airing.
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Latest news on Al Franken
IssuesBlasting Franken's "vulgarity," Wash. Post 's Gerson touted McCain's "civility," ignoring McCain's "vulgarity" and tolerance of it
In a June 18 Washington
Post column, citing
writings and jokes that are years and even decades old, Michael
Gerson criticized comedian and Minnesota
Democratic senatorial candidate Al Franken for what he called
Franken's "offensive
vulgarity." Gerson wrote: "The objects of Franken's humor --
including political opponents and women -- are not merely mocked but
dehumanized. His trashiness is also nastiness." Gerson later added,
"At its best, politics can offer examples of civility and generosity that
challenge selfishness and prejudice -- the tradition so far embraced by both
John McCain and Barack Obama. At the very least, politics should not actively
push our culture toward vulgarity and viciousness. This is not prudery; it is a
practical concern for the cooperation and mutual respect necessary in a
functioning democracy. And it is hard to believe those causes would be served
by a Sen. Franken." However, in citing McCain as an "example[] of
civility and generosity that challenge selfishness and prejudice," Gerson
ignored McCain's previous personal attacks on Sen. Hillary Clinton, including
an appearance at a 1998 Republican fundraiser where McCain reportedly made what New York Times
columnist Maureen Dowd called a
"disgusting jape": "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her
father is Janet Reno." (He
reportedly later apologized to President Bill Clinton.)
Media Matters for America has documented that McCain tolerated
an attack
on Hillary Clinton as well as took a "swipe" at her during the
presidential campaign. During a November 2007 campaign event in South Carolina, when a
questioner asked McCain, "How do we beat the bitch?" -- presumably
referring to Hillary Clinton -- McCain responded that it was an "excellent
question" and then pointed to a Rasmussen poll that he said showed him
beating Clinton in a head-to-head matchup before saying, "I respect
Senator Clinton." Additionally, an October 18, 2007, Associated Press article reported
that while campaigning in South
Carolina, McCain "couldn't resist a swipe at
Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton." The article noted that
during an appearance at the University
of South Carolina Upstate
nursing school, "McCain took one look at a ... training mannequin and asked if the
dummy's name was Hillary." The article quoted McCain as saying, "I
was very glad to meet the dummy, named 'Hillary.' "
McCain's campaign has also been linked to personal
attacks against Clinton,
as Media Matters has noted. Before joining the campaign in early June, McCain's deputy
communications director,
Michael Goldfarb,
regularly engaged in the kind of personal smears that McCain has denounced. In his prior capacity as
online editor of The
Weekly Standard, from which he is on leave, Goldfarb
described Clinton as a "shameless panderer" who "lie[s]"
"more than most" politicians and mustered "faux outrage"
that came off as "pathetic whining" about her treatment from the
media. Goldfarb said of Clinton's "3
a.m." ad about the economy: "[D]oes anyone think Clinton wouldn't bite off the heads of at
least three staffers if her much needed beauty sleep was disturbed by a middle
of the night phone call about the economy?"
From Gerson's
June 18 Washington Post column:
In the razor-close and nationally
important Senate race in Minnesota,
Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is presented with a unique political problem.
Should he raise in his ads the issue of comedian Al Franken's offensive
vulgarity? Or would this risk a backlash against Coleman for coarsening the
public conversation? Remember that when Ken Starr detailed Bill Clinton's most
repulsive antics -- stained dresses and such -- it was Starr who was accused of
sexual obsessiveness.
[...]
"Porn-O-Rama!" is a modern
campaign document every voter should read -- the Federalist Papers of lifestyle
liberalism. It has the literary sensibilities and moral seriousness of an
awkward adolescent nerd publishing an underground newspaper to shock his way
into campus popularity. But, in this case, the article was written in 2000 by a
48-year-old man.
Franken's "brand name"
includes other highlights. In 2006, after a long monologue about a dog and its
vomit, Franken impersonated the deceased Sen. Strom Thurmond as saying: "Yeah,
I screwed a woman who was vomiting once." He once proposed a television
sketch about a female CBS reporter being drugged and raped. He has suggested
that his next book title might be "I F -- -- -- Hate Those Right-Wing
Motherf -- -- -- !" At an event hosted by the Feminist Majority Foundation
in 1999, Franken offered this thigh-slapper: "Why don't we focus on what
Afghan women can do? They can cook, bear children and pray. As I recall, that
was fine for our grandmothers."
Our popular culture, of course,
violates even these expansive boundaries of tastelessness with regularity. We
laugh at comedies featuring the C-word and at cartoons of foul-mouthed
third-graders. In the cause of relevance and realism, our common life is
already decorated with excrement. Why should political discourse be any
different?
For at least one reason: Because
vulgarity is often the opposite of civility. This is not, of course, always
true. I know a brilliant and large-hearted academic with roots in south Philly who
uses the F-word with the frequency of "like" or "and." But
the vulgarity of "The Jerry Springer Show" or misogynous rap music --
the cultural equivalents of Franken's political "satire" -- generally
expresses contempt and cruelty. Franken is not content to disagree with Karl
Rove; he calls him "human filth." He is not satisfied to criticize
Ari Fleischer; Franken terms him a "chimp." The objects of Franken's
humor -- including political opponents and women -- are not merely mocked but
dehumanized. His trashiness is also nastiness. Rather than lampooning the
emptiness and viciousness of our political discourse -- a proper role for
satire -- Franken has powerfully reinforced those failures.
Some institutions must be more than
a mirror to our culture, including families, religious communities and
government. At its best, politics can offer examples of civility and generosity
that challenge selfishness and prejudice -- the tradition so far embraced by
both John McCain and Barack Obama. At the very least, politics should not
actively push our culture toward vulgarity and viciousness. This is not
prudery; it is a practical concern for the cooperation and mutual respect
necessary in a functioning democracy. And it is hard to believe those causes
would be served by a Sen. Franken.
Published: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:01:36 GMT - Source: Mediamatters.Org - Read the articleNorth America[Opinion] The balance of the Senate is in limbo
Minnesota's DFL convention delegates on Saturday gave Al Franken the go ahead to take on Republican nominee and incumbent Norm Coleman in a U.S. Senate race which, according to Congressional Quarterly, has "no clear favorite." ...
Published: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:14:36 GMT - Source: Mndaily.Com - Read the article
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