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During his run for the Senate, and through the subsequent vote count, Al Franken put aside the jokes and showed a more serious side of his personality. Now that he’s been seated, some are wondering if he’s free to be funny again. We asked longtime SNL writer and Franken collaborator James Downey.
Please, No more Mike Pesca. I'm sure he's very smart and all. But his over-caffeinating delivery is just too jarring. Part of what is so enjoyable and interesting about OTM is Garfield and Brook's pleasing delivery and when both are there, banter. Public Radio should be on notice: a lot of the Goodbye to Walter Cronkite this week is how the public radio hosts trying to deliver the eulogies were so lacking in delivery skills. PLEASE> NO MORE MIKE PESCA!!!
Most coverage of Franken's ascent to the Senate forgets to mention that he got 42% of the popular vote in a three-way race. So he starts his term with 58% of his voting constituents having preferred opponents a bit to his political Right - not a good position for a hard-core partisan. Franken was never very funny when the subject was politics, except to those who thought Dan Quayle jokes were edgy knee-slappers, so I expect he will try to recalibrate to a more folksy, Will Rogers persona. Looking like a clown will probably not impress the voters he needs who opted for either of his two opponents.
Perhaps he will take a leaf from his late friend Sen. Wellstone. Wellstone came to the Senate breathing fire and brimstone against an amused Sen. Jesse Helms. Five years on, when Wellstone was killed in a plane crash while campaigning for re-election as a bridge-building moderate, Helms was able to eulogize Wellstone on the floor of the Senate as a friend as well as a colleague.
Didn't any of you guys listen to Al Franken's very wonky and serious radio show for 3 years? Humor was there, but seriously there was a lot of depth.
That goes for his 7 books as well.
It seems shallow to only look back to before all of that to a time when he was writing stinging political satire.
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