Now, thanks to the Internet, pugnacious bloggers and a high-profile expose on “60 Minutes,” the book’s revelations that members of Congress are making a mint from insider trading can’t be hidden. Even Jay Leno is aware of the book’s most contentious material.

Leno referenced the book’s charges this week during one of his “Tonight Show” monologues:

“You ever notice these guys only spend their money when it’s a sure thing?”

A joke only works if the public gets the references in it, so it’s clear Schweizer’s message is reaching the masses. That means it’s fodder for comedians like Leno willing to find political humor wherever it may be, regardless of the party name affixed to it.

The recent war of time slots and words between Jay Leno and NBC brings two thoughts to mind. First is that Jay should adopt the old hook of Rodney Dangerfield because he isn’t getting any respect. Second it reminds me of one of the most brilliant and simplest things ever written about show business. One of my favorite books about show business is “Adventures in the Screen Trade” by the great screenwriter William Goldman. Perhaps the most significant insight he gives about show business and especially those who try to run things is that, “Nobody knows anything.”

This has never been a more perfect example of this than in the recent actions by the geniuses running NBC Television. Starting about two years ago the top brass at the peacock network made a decision that the smug hipness of Conan O’Brien was more important than the steady high ratings and common man touch of Jay Leno. Jay’s real sin was that he was getting older. His shock of black Elvis-like hair had gone salt and pepper and then gray. He wasn’t the young hip motorcycle guy with a beef, he was a late middle aged guy who told great jokes and had great numbers. Not good enough!

They announced that Jay would give up The Tonight Show to Conan at the end of his contract. In a moment of lucid thought somebody realized that Jay might not like riding off into the sunset in his mid-fifties. He could go to another network. So another genius made up some goofy Tonight Show/non-Tonight Show for the 10 P.M. slot and offered it to Jay. It sank like a stone in the ratings. Jay’s fault? I don’t think so.

So now the rumors are flying and Jay is taking verbal jabs at NBC. His recent monologues are vintage Leno and show what a master of the art of stand-up he is. A long time ago when I was hanging with Jay one night he was asked by another comic why he worked so much. Why with The Tonight Show and other money he was making would he jet up to Vegas and do a weekend at Caesar’s? I remember Jay saying something like you only have so much time on top so you have to make the money while you can.  He has done that.

I think Jay is past caring if NBC keeps him or not. He has always said he is a comic first and that his ability to do stand-up is the base of everything he does. I think he’ll always find a gig; he’s still at the top of his game. Years ago he begged NBC for a shot on late night TV, now they should be begging him to stay. Personally, I’d like to see him after American Idol on Fox.

The man who would become one of the most popular movie stars of the last quarter century was born in 1936, the son of a small-town police chief in Florida. He grew up handsome and tough, randy and reckless — by fourteen, he had lost his virginity to a much older woman, and soon after knocked up the prom queen (his attempts to cajole her into marriage were rebuffed by the girl’s society-maven mother, who forced her daughter to abort the baby). Such antics were an early harbinger of both the charismatic charm and voracious, self-destructive appetites that would define (and sometimes decimate) his later career (a typical joke — Q: Why didn’t Burt Reynolds ever take Loni Anderson out to dinner? A: He made it a rule never to date married women.)

Like John Wayne thirty years earlier, an injury ended Reynolds’ budding college football career, and in 1955 he turned toward acting. Future stars like Joanne Woodward and Rip Torn were early friends during his New York salad days, and the connections he built there ultimately allowed him to journey west in the late Fifties to seek his fortune in Hollywood. At the time he bore an uncanny resemblance to superstar Marlon Brando, and along with new pals like Clint Eastwood he spent long, disheartening years scrambling between minor roles in various television shows such as Riverboat and Gunsmoke. He even served as a contestant on The Dating Game. “I spent a long time playing the third Indian from the left,” he says ruefully of those early jobs.

From the start of the “swingin’ Sixties,” he seldom felt at home among the young, self-important thespians who would eventually rule the industry. “I don’t belong in places like New York or Los Angeles,” he insisted when pressed. “I should be on a farm with a few cases of good beer.” Reynolds’ first marriage, to the English actress Judy Carne, disintegrated when he couldn’t bring himself to join the never-ending drug-infested parties she presided over with an assortment of heroin-addicted hippies and Charles Manson rejects.

While many of his friends tried to emulate the new hip stars of that decade and their space-cadet ways, Reynolds was drawn to a different world, one to which his pal Hal Needham provided the gateway. “One time,” Needham remembers, “[Burt] mentioned that he didn’t know much about motorcycles, so I suggested that he come over to my place and practice. I had motorcycles and a tree where we used to do high falls. Every weekend there were fifteen or twenty stunt guys practicing. Burt started coming around every weekend. He got along well with all of the guys.”

In that way, over a long period of association, Reynolds’ persona became more of a stuntman than an actor — and for the most part, that was fine by him. The rarefied careers of emotive twerps like Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino didn’t interest him. “There are two or three young actors around,” he once said in his heyday, “I won’t mention any names — who if I see them painfully staring at the rug in one more picture, I’m gonna puke.” I imagine Reynolds shares that thought, then and now, with a vast swath of the nation’s movie-going public. The Needham/Reynolds friendship grew over the course of fifteen years, and Reynolds never forgot the way his pal shared his contacts and expertise.

By the end of the 1960s, Reynolds was an established television personality, but his early work had stereotyped him as a serious, angry, morose action star, a role that didn’t jive with his true nature. Something important was missing from the mix: humor. The venue Reynolds ultimately used to introduce his jocular side to the public was novel. “The beginning of almost everything good that ever happened to me,” he says, “was a result of my being on the Tonight Show.” His first appearances there were a revelation, creating a pop-culture electricity that today is hard to fathom. “The guy on Evening Shade [his successful early 1990s TV sitcom] is who I am and always was,” Reynolds feels. “The guy on the Tonight Show is who I was after seven vodka and tonics, which is generally what I had before I walked out.”

Whatever he drank, his stints on the program utterly transformed his persona in the eyes of the public. Instead of the usual actors taking themselves ultra-seriously, mumbling about how much effort and technique and skill they put into their roles, Reynolds would cheerfully call his latest film a flat-out turkey, poke fun at his lack of top-flight acting ambition, and shamelessly play the part of a rich, sexy, fun-loving Hollywood star who was enjoying the wild ride like no one else.

The following 1974 appearance on the Tonight Show, made while promoting The Longest Yard, gives the modern viewer an idea of the early swagger that he would later parlay into the films that made him the top box-office attraction of the late Seventies and early Eighties:

Soon the fairly unknown TV star was Johnny Carson’s hottest guest, to the point where Carson often had Reynolds guest host the show for him. The fame gained from these appearances rocketed him out of the Hollywood doldrums. For the first time, the name BURT REYNOLDS on a marquee opened movies all by itself, and he now had his choice of what kind of projects to do.

But crucially, rather than go the usual route of chasing Oscars, he opted for a more personal direction. “My friends all wear cowboy hats and have horse manure on their boots,” he said. “They ask me if I knew John Wayne, and I say ‘no,’ and that’s the end of the show business talk.” So with his new-found clout he began doing Southern “hick flicks,” many of which (Deliverance, White Lightning, The Longest Yard, Gator) became popular, making him a beloved figure throughout flyover country. Tellingly, these projects were spaced out with other, more mainstream roles, many of which weren’t popular at all. Reynolds was getting stereotyped again, but this time as a character America was warming to.

In the mid-Seventies, with Needham still living in Reynolds’ guest house after his divorce twelve years earlier, the chance finally came to pay back a karmic debt to his old friend. “One day,” Reynolds says, “[Needham] gave me a script he’d written. Titled Smokey and the Bandit, it was scrawled on a yellow legal pad in his own handwriting. Cheap bastard hadn’t even had it typed.” He read the script and was underwhelmed. “Now Hal and I had one of the tightest friendships in show business. He’d directed second-unit footage and coordinated stunts on six of my films. My God, we’d lived together longer than either of us had lived with any of the women to whom we’d been married. So it was hard to tell him I thought it was the worst script I’d read in my life.”

Nevertheless, he saw some potential in the tale — its outlaw, Robin Hood conceit might be greatly appealing, if the dialogue and scenes could be spruced up to match. Various agents and hangers-on told Reynolds he would be crazy to star in a madcap, low-budget screwball comedy. He needed more movies, they argued, like Deliverance — parts that could further his reputation as a serious actor. “Every single one of my advisers and friends,” Reynolds says, “went down on their hands and knees begging me with tears in their eyes not to make that film. Mind you, if you had read the original script, you’d probably have done the same.”

But beyond Reynolds affinity for the basic plot and the Southern atmosphere, he felt he owed his friend a good turn. Hal Needham was in his forties and nearing the end of his useful life as a stuntman, and Reynolds well knew of his desire to move into directing. So, when Needham tried and failed to get any of the studios interested in the picture, Reynolds made it known around town that he would be willing to star as the Bandit. Instantly, studio doors opened wide, and Needham found his previously derided script in demand. It was, Needham later admitted, “the biggest thing anyone has ever done for me in my life.”

If Reynolds had saved the script by putting his potent box-office muscle behind it, Needham himself added some necessary guts to the package. Reynolds remembers how

[film executive Mike] Medavoy wanted to make a movie with me — but not Smokey. Instead, he handed Hal the script of Convoy and said he could direct that one if I starred. Hal, who’d never directed, considered the bigger-budget offer and said, “No, it’s mine or nothing.” That’s the reason I love Hal. He’s a hell of a man.

It would have been easy for Needham to fold his hand, toss away his script, and try to make someone else’s movie. But he perceptively decided that Convoy had none of the charm, authenticity, or raw excitement that his own Smokey and the Bandit tale promised, and he held firm under withering studio pressure.

Looking back, Burt Reynolds epitomizes not only the best but much of the worst that movie stardom has to offer. Stardom often went to his head, something he freely admits in his autobiography. He’s known for having a short fuse. All the womanizing left him a twice-divorced, 73-year-old lonely bachelor. Vanity led to cadaverous plastic surgery (compare Reynolds’ futile attempt to still look 40 to the gracefully aged visages of contemporaries like Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood). Many of his films are now derided as junk, projects he undertook even as he rejected such choice roles as James Bond, Trapper John in M*A*S*H, Han Solo in Star Wars, the (Oscar-winning) astronaut Garrett Breedlove in Terms of Endearment, John McClane in Die Hard, and many others.

In 1996, the former superstar’s spendthrift ways caught up to him, and he was forced to file bankruptcy with assets of $6.65 million against debts of $11.2 million — a pathetic pittance of an estate for a four-decade member of Hollywood royalty. Reynolds suffered his share of plain old bad luck as well: acute hypoglycemia in the Seventies, a horrible case of temporomandibular joint disorder in the Eighties. He once mused wryly that when life-threateningly ill, “you make a hundred bargains with God. But as soon as you feel better, you break them.”

But there’s another side to Burt Reynolds: the stand-up guy, full of graciousness and generosity to fans and friends. Note that he never has built his personal politics into a wall between himself and the public. One incident in particular hammers this home for me. Back in 1985, when AIDS was first entering the nation’s consciousness, the activist group AIDS Project Los Angeles asked Elizabeth Taylor (a close friend of the then-dying Rock Hudson) to organize a fundraiser that would help create mainstream awareness of this feared disease. Taylor called everyone she knew asking for help, but according to her virtually everyone balked. “The people in this town didn’t give a damn!” she remembered many years later. “That made me cynical about Hollywood. What a sad lesson. It’s a very sad comment on this town.”

Actually it’s par for the course — today many of those same people fly private jets while lecturing the rest of us about carbon emissions. But it says a lot that — with Rock Hudson having only weeks to live, and everyone else afraid to attend an AIDS fundraiser that might hurt their careers — Burt Reynolds was one of only a small handful of stars to say “yes” to Taylor’s request. Not only that, he took upon himself the most thankless task of the event: reading aloud the pledge of support that the hated Republican President, Ronald Reagan, had generously sent from Washington. Let it be noted for the record that, on September 19, 1985, actor Burt Reynolds stood up at Taylor’s event and read Reagan’s letter, while being roundly booed by a mass of angry activist attendees. That counts for something in my book.

(as an aside: at a similar event some time later, Reagan showed up in person to once again graciously pledge his support for AIDS research. The same classless ingrates from ACT UP who had booed Reynolds began doing the same thing to the President. To Elizabeth Taylor’s everlasting credit, she grabbed the mic and shut them all down, yelling, “I don’t care what your politics are, I don’t care how you feel about the President or what he’s not doing, he is still the President of the United States of America and you owe him some due respect, so shut the f*** up!” Properly chastised, the buffoons did shut up, and Reagan was able to give his speech.)

In light of all of this, I’ve got a question for you: do you know if Burt Reynolds is a Democrat? A Republican? An Independent?

No clue, right?

Good.

“Most of my friends are very political,” Reynolds admits, “and they were chagrined when I wasn’t active during the 1976 Presidential campaign.” He was making Smokey and the Bandit during that time, and could have joined the usual suspects in protesting and posturing and shrieking hate at ordinary Americans, all in an attempt to fit in with the Hollywood gang and grease the wheels of his career. Instead, he chose to “shut up and sing.” As conservatives and as movie lovers, we should give him due credit for that gift of silence.

Hal Needham dismisses those in Hollywood who think of Reynolds as a jerk, and reminds us that, “Without Burt, I’d never have had a chance. Burt has this capacity for loyalty and caring. He has made it and he doesn’t forget anyone he has ever cared for, man or woman.” That caring extends not only to friends like Needham, but to all the people who have enjoyed his films over the years. On September 24, 1981, at the height of his fame, Reynolds immortalized his hand and footprints in the famous forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. He took the opportunity to scratch a simple line into the moist cement, one that speaks for itself and that modern Hollywood would do well to emulate:

Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers: The Great One. ’Nuff said.

Previous posts in the series “Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and Smokey and the Bandit”:

Part 1

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

If you ever find yourself in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach area, you might consider taking a detour to Jupiter, Florida to visit the Burt Reynolds Roadside Museum, located in an old bank building and filled with memorabilia, autographed pictures, awards, and other items.

After making such a point about Reynolds’ laudable decision to keep his politics to himself, I should mention that NewsMeat: America’s Most Popular Campaign Donor Search Engine lists a mere two political contributions from Burt Reynolds: one to Florida Senator Bob Graham way back in 1986, and one to Bill Clinton during his first run in 1992. Both Democrats, but also Southerners who Reynolds might have known and felt obligated to help on grounds other than raw politics.

To balance the scales, the entry for Smokey and the Bandit director Hal Needham lists three donations, one for the Dems and two for the GOP. Poke around the site and examine their celebrity donation lists — you might be surprised to find out how many of your favorite stars are closet Republicans.

Reynolds’ My Life is one of the better celebrity autobiographies out there. Like all such volumes it is more than a bit self-serving, but overall it lays bare the ups and downs, and gives some crucial insights into the blessing/curse of fame. If you haven’t seen Reynolds’ excellent four-hour-long one-man show An Evening with Burt Reynolds (alas, it’s not available on DVD, and who knows how many more times the seventy-three-year-old Reynolds is going to perform it live), reading this book is the next-best thing.

Like Barbara Walters’ painfully inane TV specials, Inside the Actor’s Studio has long been a safe place for actors and directors to preen like peacocks, cry like children, and indulge in the fantasy of being a thoughtful intellectual. Nevertheless, excepting perennially vacuous questions like “What sound or noise do you love” and “What is your favorite curse word,” this Bravo TV show occasionally teases enough insight and anecdotage out of its subjects to make it worthwhile. Here are four YouTube videos (part 2 has been deleted by YouTube, probably because of the Smokey clips) showing Reynolds braving host James Lipton’s Lamb’s Den.

Part 1 | Part 2 (missing) | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

In a November 2007 radio interview I did on The Andrea Shea King Show with McMahon to talk about his then newly published book “When Television Was Young, Live, Spontaneous and in Living Black and White,” we talked about his life, and what it was like to share the NBC “Tonight Show” set with The King of Late Night.

McMahon was dealing with a bout of layrngitis, but it didn’t stop him from opening the interview with the famous words that announced to American viewers it was time for their eagerly anticipated nightly entertainment — “Heeere’s Johnny!”

Their Friendship

McMahon told of how he and Carson met.

“The first day I ever worked, I did a show with him called “Who Do You Trust” on ABC.  It was a quiz show, a game show in the afternoon, it was live, and he hosted it. He had another announcer, a fellow named Bill Nimmo who got his own show and he had to leave.   I came up and auditioned for the show and I got the job. Which was a wonderful, lucky happenstance for me.

“What happened was, on the very first show here I am a little nervous, you can imagine.  I’m doing the first show, and I’m replacing somebody.  I want to do a good job, and I’ve got a script in front of me and on this script it’s got these six responses of the day: “Swansdown Cake Mixes, the cake mixes you can trust.”  I have to read this.  Now, the audience at home doesn’t see me of course, but the audience in the theater does.  Johnny Carson comes over and sets fire to my script.  That’s the very first day I ever worked with him!

“Talk about buddies!  That kind of sealed us forever.  For at least thirty-seven years anyway.  And forty-seven years of friendship. But that sealed it. When he set fire to my script, I knew we were off and running, this is gonna be different than any other show I was on.  And then of course, when he got the Tonight Show he took me with him, which was another happenstance for me.  And we had thirty years of wonderful times on the Tonight Show.”

There never was a disagreement between them.  “We’d have dinner once a week or a couple of times a week.  We just became buddies.  We were like two kids kicking a can down the street, we just enjoyed each other, we liked to be with each other.”

The Funniest Bit

McMahon recalled the funniest moment on the show, the one that to this day holds the record for the longest sustained audience applause.

“Ed Ames had been a singer with his brothers, the Ames Brothers, then he went out on his own.  And then he went into acting. He got a job on a frontier show as an Indian.  And he was trying to show Johnny how you threw a tomahawk.  He was gonna throw a tomahawk at a cut-out we had.  We’d taken a piece of plywood and we’d drawn a cowboy outline on there in black chalk, full size.  You know, with the guns and the holsters and the vest and the badge, the ten-gallon hat and the boots.  Ed Ames was supposed to throw this hatchet, or tomahawk, at the target.  Now, he threw it and it struck the cowboy where no cowboy should be struck.  Especially if he plans on having a family.

“Johnny had three of the greatest lines ever — ad libs.  And to give you an idea of how sharp he was, Ed Ames of course is embarrassed and wants to go and retrieve the tomahawk.  There it is with the handle sticking out.  You can imagine what that looked like.  Anyway, Johnny grabbed him.  He knew that he had gold.  And when the laughter subsided a little bit, he said, ‘I didn’t even know you were Jewish’.

“More laughter.  And then when that subsided, he said, ‘Welcome to the Frontier Bris’.

“And it’s not over yet. Wait a minute. Because Ed Ames was so nervous he said, ‘Do you want to try it Johnny?’  Johnny looked at Ed Ames, he looked at the poor cowboy with the hatchet sticking out and he said, ‘Well, I couldn’t hurt him anymore than you did.’

“That was like in the third year, so that kind of gave us a definition of where we were headed on the “Tonight Show.” I think that exemplified to the audience what was going to happen for the future, so twenty-seven years later, they didn’t want him to say goodbye.  They didn’t want us to leave.  They wanted us to stay right there.”

May 22, 1992 – The Goodbye

“There were really two closing nights.  The next to the last show was really the last show.  That was where Bette Midler sang to him and Robin Williams was his crazy, wonderful self.  But that last show was like a compilation of all of the bits that had happened over the years, and we saw some of the people on the screen that had left us, who are no longer around.  And we saw a lot of the good stuff that had happened, and it was just like a big basketful of goodies.

“But the night before is the one people think as the last show, and that’s where Bette Midler sang that wonderful song — a parody of  ‘One for my Baby, one more for the Road.’   And at one point she said — and I think this exemplifies the thirty years of the Tonight Show — she said, ‘And all the class that you showed.’  And boy, did he have class when he did that show!

“They called him the King of Late Night, and as far as I’m concerned, he’s still the King of Late Night.

Carson’s Foil

“I loved being the second banana.  You know, it’s quite a challenging role.  The whole idea is that you have to be in when you’re needed, and out of the way when you’re not needed.  And that’s kind of like a tightrope walker, that’s a balancing act to try to do it right.  And hopefully I did it right all those years because he didn’t say, ‘Let’s get another guy.’   He kept me.

“We knew each other, we saw each other, we had fun together, and it translated itself onto the screen.  I think people knew that.  In fact, on that next to the last show, he commented about that.  He said, ‘You know, a lot of couplings on television aren’t really good friends.’  You know what happened with Martin and Lewis.  I’m told that the Marx Brothers didn’t hang out together.  Abbott and Costello apparently were not good friends.  I don’t know.  But he said, ‘We are good friends.  We go out to dinner, we have fun together, we enjoy each other.’  And it’s true.  We just had a good time together.”

The Brigadier General

Not many people know that McMahon flew 85 combat missions in two wars.

“Well, the very first show I was on was a play I was in.  I was going to Catholic University in Washington right after World War II.  I was a Marine fighter pilot in World War Two and a test pilot.  I taught carrier landings and so forth.  But anyway, the war was over, and I wanted to continue my education.  I had been in Boston College for a year and a half and I got an OK to go to Catholic University and I studied drama and speech.  I was in a play that was broadcast from Washington, through Philadelphia to New York, in 1947.  That’s how far back I go. And it was the first use of the coaxial cable which took programming through a city, which never happened before.

“Then in 1949, Sept. 12th, a Monday, I started in Philadelphia on a show called “Take Ten”, that was the call letters, you know, the number of the station — WCAU in Philly — and there I was, host of a three-hour daily live variety show… I was the producer, I was the make-up man, I swept up the studio, whatever you had to do.  I was on the air from 12 to 3, and I was the happiest man in North America.

“I had thirteen different shows — on the air thirteen different shows a week.  Unbelievable!

“I was called back for the Korean war and off I went for a year and a half, but when I got back I went right into the same station.

“The California Air National Guard named me a Bigadier General, an honorary position, but in the Marine Corps, I got to be a full bird, what they call a full bird, a colonel.  And I’m very proud of that, and I’m very proud of my career in the Marines.  I had six years, two wars, 85 combat missions, so I’m very proud of that.”

Hollywood Then

“It’s not the same, no it’s not.  It’s unfortunate.You know, in World War Two, even in Korea, everyone was kind of involved.  They called Korea the ‘forgotten war’ but still, everybody had someone, a cousin or somebody that was in the war, and in World War Two, everybody was in the war — the Gold Star mothers, you know, everybody was involved.  We had certain restrictions and rules we had to abide by and it was a different situation.

“Unfortunately now, it’s tumbled into a thing almost like Vietnam again where these boys coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan — they should be honored as well and it disappoints me that they’re not.”

Fade to black

We went on to talk briefly about his book and with that, his faltering voice faded and he said goodnight.

McMahon was gold, and to Carson’s credit, he recognized it and kept him close by.  Sadly, we’ll never see the likes of the late night duo again.  Ed’s passing marks the end of a sparkling era in late night TV.

Goodnight, Ed McMahon.  Thank you for everything.

Disappointingly, by the time I finally did see the show in 2004, the bits I loved ceased to exist and most likely had been banished to the “Late Show” archives.  Rather than attending my first show with eagerness, it was just a cheap way to kill an evening during a business trip.  Since I didn’t have a ticket, I knew I’d need to charm my way in.

A friend had told me that to get in the front row they have “audience scouts” outside the theatre looking for people who are attractive, friendly, expressive, and bubbly.  Being an actress I knew how to play that part, so I glammed up and put on my best New York artsy chic and set out to the Ed Sullivan Theatre.  The “audience scouts,” who looked all of about 14-years-old, were out in front waiting for their subjects to approach.  Oh, to be that young making so little money but holding so much power!  Knowing what I must do, I got my “bubble on” and with just the right amount of star stuck enthusiasm I approached one of the 14-year-old keepers of the audience paperwork!

I beamed: “I’ve been trying to get into see Dave’s show since the 80’s when he was on NBC! (Smile, gush, turning my womanly wiles to the young man who showed some flirt) OMG, how do I go about being in the audience?  And who’s going to be on the show tonight?” (They don’t reveal who the guests are in advance. My guess is they don’t want to lose audience members once they find out!).  The “audience scout” asked me a trivia question “Who is Dave’s assistant?.”  I answered “Stephanie” and I was in.  He gave me an index card with a specific color sticker on it and told me to come back in two hours and get in “THIS line…not that line…THIS line.” (As if “THIS” line was the waiting list for an organ transplant).

I went back to the apartment, took a nap (feigned excitement is exhausting), and went back at the designated time.  Well “THIS” line turned out to be the golden ticket. I was in “the chosen” group to sit in the front row.

Before the “audience wranglers” single filed us into the theatre, they gave a speech in the lobby.  First they told us that just before taping Dave comes out and takes questions from the audience.  They wanted us to be creative with questions, but no asking for a picture with him or a kiss from him, yadda yadda. Then they told us to “laugh, clap, and cheer loudly and heartily at EVERYTHING Dave says and does.  This is how Dave gets fired up.  The more clapping and laughing, the better show he’ll have, but no high pitched hooting.”  Perhaps Dave might confuse a hoot with a boo.

Wow, the audience holds Dave’s mood in the palm of their clapping hands. This is really shocking to me. Even attractive smiling people sitting in the front row can be anti-Obama.  Why would they give the audience that kind of ammo?  But I digress.  During Dave’s monologue he started Bush bashing.  I was a Bush supporter and just starting to become politically active at that time. For me the evening news was simply the boring stuff I had to sit through if I tuned in too early for “Entertainment Tonight” or the “Late Show.”  However, I did want to boo at the bashing once the rest of the trained seals stopped cheering, but being alone I didn’t have the courage.  I wouldn’t have been comfortable being publicly flogged by the “audience police” that were half my age.

To make my front row “Late Show” experience even worse, Diane Sawyer was the guest!  So, I curbed my boos and pouted until the show ended and I was released!  (Side note, the “Late Show” band live is amazing!)

Since then, my “Late Show” viewing has been infrequent.  I did happen to catch the show mid-March where Dave bashed Bush, Cheney, AND Clinton–an entire trifecta of been there, done that; after which he soberly stated “we finally have someone in the White House we trust.”  I waited for the punch line.  But holy cow, after a couple beats of dead, uncomfortable air and cricket chirps, he just moved on.

I haven’t watched since. I am NOW done with Letterman.  With one exception…I have decided to make it my mission, and to inspire my fellow BHers, to go see the show with the courage I couldn’t find: to “boo” at Dave’s Obama worship and redundant, tired old Bush diatribes.  I encourage you to arrive armed with allies; after all, there is safety in numbers.

The left is trying to silence our voices both socially and legislatively.  So with the media continuing their embargo against reporting any truths about the administration, the late night comedians ignoring the faux pas,’ blunders, and idiocies of the savior in chief, and Hollywood swooning over their royal hinies, it’s time to use the “Late Show” venue to do one little thing in the name of comedy…boo and hiss instead of staying silent while the lemmings cheer.

Go armed with a couple examples of what makes this president, like every other president, comic fodder,  just in case you’re the one Dave picks for the pre-show question and you ask, scratching your head, “Why aren’t you doing any Obama jokes?”

Whether it’s an uncomfortable question pre-show or a “boo/hiss” for some lame bit during the show, it would be fun to rock Dave’s mojo by making joyful noises against Obama the poseur lord. We could take up time and maybe even be ushered out. This would also remind Dave’s writers that there are still Republicans out in his audience!

One thing I know about performers: they can get glowing reviews, standing ovations, and thunderous applause, but they remember the harshest criticism, bad review, or night-long heckle more often than all the positive reviews combined.  Tina Fey even mentioned the critical fans on the internet in her acceptance speech for best actress at the Golden Globes. So, let’s start giving Dave a show he’ll remember with an audience that wants real hope for change.

I’m serious, anyone interested in a little “Late Show” guerrilla field trip, send me an email and let’s see how we can make this happen:

lateshow@comcast.net

PS – Let’s not stop at “The Late Show.” In New York City there is also “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” for your “booing” pleasure (I can hear it from here!), “Colbert Nation” and in Burbank “The Tonight Show” just to name a few.  Go forth and exercise your right to “boo” while we still can!

Modesty, however, cannot dismiss a growing body of evidence that suggests comedians possess greater power than ever before when shaping the national debate.   Notably in the last decade, television comedy has amassed an influence in politics to such and extent; nary a high profile politician can ignore its impact and resist the pull to participate.   Numerous studies have been conducted through the years analyzing the staggering impact of comedy in the opinions and perceptions of its audience.  The power is particularly significant with the country’s attention-short youth. 

Since 1977, “Saturday Night Live,” and in more recent years, “The Daily Show with John Stewart” have been a destination for those that like to laugh at pop-culture and politicians.  Often the majority audience is not deeply invested in subject matters skewered and lampooned, especially subjects of policy and legislative debate in Washington D.C.  Most comedy show audiences probably believe they possess a substantive understanding of the issues of the day.  The audiences are largely raucous, passionate, and young.  Youthful exuberance is intoxicating for comedians.  It feeds the performer in the moment, and leaves the home viewer with the impression the show’s message resonates with the masses.

In truth, the live audience sycophants would cheer like trained seals no matter the content.  Being on TV or around those that make TV is just – “cool.”  Informed content is not required.  Check informed opinion at the studio door.  Allegiance to what is “hip” is all that is necessary.

Ever wonder how many in a live studio audience actually watch an evening newscast in lieu of episodes of “Family Guy” and “American Idol?”  Many of them see the USA Today banner headlines, top-of-the-fold at their local gas station as they fill their tank and grab an energy drink for the road.  Still others hear the latest news of the day on their favorite FM radio station’s sixty-second newscast sandwiched in between a hot phone debate on Octo-mom or Chris Brown and Rhiana.  The truth, of course, is it’s a fast paced, multimedia, information culture where there is very little honest information to be found. Keith Olbermann, The Huffington Post, and Daily Kos don’t count, incidentally.

It is that lack of honest information and intolerance for substance that empowers variety and comedy shows to shape national opinion.

Presidential candidates, serious policy thinkers, Wall Street investors, and military giants are all reduced to sketch comedy and six minute interviews to share their message at large.  Once left entirely to men like Murrow and Cronkite, John Stewart and Lorne Michaels are now the gatekeepers and disseminators of information and opinion to a large swath of our nation’s population.  Information and opinion filtered through their unabashed bias.

Lauded and blamed for the destruction of Sarah Palin’s vice presidential aspirations in 2008, SNL’s Tina Fey impression had an undeniable impact on the way millions of Americans judged the Alaska governor.   Comedic lines meant to underscore Fey and company’s narrative of the Governor as an intellectual lightweight rapidly became truth to many voters.  “I can see Russia from my house,” was a fictional comedic line delivered by Fey.  Fey made no secret in interviews about her private disdain for Palin, and her passionate support of Barack Obama.  Sarah Palin’s occasional missteps were artfully employed by a comedian to deliver a big sucker punch in a close election.  The dead-ringer impression became a bigger story than the candidate herself.   While she never actually claimed a view of Russia from her house, millions of SNL viewers still credit the famous line to Palin anyway.

Recently, Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” has been mining the nation’s populist anger at Wall Street for his punch lines.  Host Jon Stewart had been using his nightly stage to portray CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer as a dishonest ringmaster of financial chaos, encouraging his viewers to make reckless investments based on knee-jerk, irresponsible analysis.  Never mind Cramer’s show contains a disclaimer essentially describing it as entrainment, not advice.

This fact did not deter Stewart from playing clips of Cramer’s show, (Cramer contends out of context) to imply his backing of now defunct financial institutions. Want to wager how many in that audience had ever heard of Jim Cramer, his show, or a toxic asset prior to show tape?

A week-long media blitz ensued as Stewart and Cramer shot back and forth through multiple media outlets and their own shows.  Cramer finally agreed to appear on Stewart’s show to address the debate head-on.  Richard Cohen of the Washington Post summarized the power Stewart seemed to posses during the televised meeting.  “…Cramer almost instantly sank into a classic case of Stockholm syndrome, agreeing much of the time with his captor. He came with sleeves rolled up but with the droopy eyes of a chastised puppy.”

Of course there are a number of thoughtful debates concerning our nation’s perilous financial state, but Stewart took the low road.  By singling out Cramer, Stewart dishonestly created a villain; an emotional punching bag for him and the largely ignorant mob in-studio.  Stewart’s audience cheered like Romans in the Coliseum as Stewart seemed to lay Wall Street’s ruin at the feet of Cramer alone.

It is not simply, though that some of today’s comedians take unfair liberties in what they say and write.  Not only is that not new, but who says comedy has to be fair to be funny?  Noticeably it is what today’s comedians are not saying and writing that have many who roared at Fey’s Palin impression only politely chuckling at this season’s disconnected comedy.

For those who pay close attention to the news of late it is clear there is an enormous, almost daily crop of low-hanging fruit just ripe for sketch comedy’s harvest.  It is not uncommon to watch or read the news of the day and think “this should be on ‘Saturday Night Live’ this weekend.”   It seems like a missed opportunity if not painfully dishonest to watch comedy programming and note their inability or unwillingness to score obvious laughs with the country’s most obvious subject – the President of the United States.

Pick your high-profile candidate or president of the last 30 years and Saturday Night Live created a lasting and often crippling parody of their character and leadership flaws.  Chevy Chase’s Ford was a bumbling klutz and Dan Aykroyd’s Carter, a smooth and smiling empty suit.  Dana Carvey’s elder Bush was stilted with scripted throwaway lines.  Phil Hartman’s Regan was gentile on the outside but a calculating power-broker on the inside.  Every year, every election they kept them coming.

Bill Clinton was a McDonald’s-starved sex fiend.   George W. Bush was a cocky moron led by the cold, sinister Dick Cheney.  Remember Ross Perot and his charts, Admiral Stockdale’s loony rants, and Al Gore’s petulant, haughty sighs?  Michael Dukakis had bushy eyebrows and a losing attitude.  Hillary Clinton was a woman desperate for power at all costs and Joe Biden is a slick-talking, loud, brash, phony everyman with a Cheshire Cat grin.  All classic SNL created characters still sold on collector DVDs to this day.

Yet today, the 44th President of the United States has managed to come away from nearly three years of high-profile coverage untouched and unscathed by the show made legend for mocking the most powerful players in the country’s capital.  There is a palpable, labored delivery as the cast and writers of “Saturday Night Live” search to find something funny about Barack Obama.

It is obvious the Obama administration is a target-rich environment for big laughs, but the television comedy industry is purposely firing blanks.  We have entered an unusually dishonest era of comedy.

As it became clear Barack Obama was going to give the once-presumed unbeatable Hillary Clinton a run for her money in the 2007 Democratic primary, SNL was quick to take note.  The obvious bias the show’s creative team would display going forward was immediate to even a casual fan.

Week after week, Obama’s primary fight with Clinton was the focus of the signature opening sketch.  As Obama gained traction the characterization of Clinton became increasingly more desperate and needy.  Even the press was mocked by the show as being partial to Obama through impressions of Gwen Ifill and Tim Russert.  Once each party’s front-runners were nominated, Republican John McCain was quickly cast as wandering and passionless.  Of course people are still abuzz about the aforementioned Palin portrayal by Tina Fey.  Consistently though, Obama’s SNL alter ego would walk away from every satirical situation unscathed.

Students and fans of television comedy are seeing for the first time in modern history productions devoid of laughs at the expense of the most powerful office in the world.  Not only have SNL’s attempts at capturing the essence of Obama fallen flat, the inability of the show’s writers to find any laugh-worthy faults in this administration borders on disturbing.

Clearly attempting to write around this president, we have seen opening sketches of House Republicans debating their latest “obstructionist” strategy.  Dan Aykroyd made a guest appearance as House Minority Leader John Boehner.  It would be interesting to conduct a focus group in the live studio audience after the show. Their awkward, politely required half-laughs seemed to indicate there were not many who understood what they were watching.   When sizable demographics of the population can’t name the Vice President, it seems safe to assume most Americans won’t know House minority leadership.

We’ve seen ridiculous scenes of Senate Republicans being thrown out of the Oval Office window by an Incredible Hulk version of President Obama.  Again, show of hands in the audience.  How many knew Oklahoma Senator Tom Colburn and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison?   Certainly there have been half-hearted attempts to tweak Democrats like Tim Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Joe Biden and even Rahm Emmanuel.  But in each scene, each sketch, each show, each week – President Obama is portrayed only in various degrees of calm and cool, almost victimized by a sea of buffoonery surrounding him.

In actuality, the Obama administration is a satirical gold mine; a comedy of errors just over two months in the making.  There are scores of actual events and instances gone completely ignored by our creative friends in New York’s hallowed halls of comedic television that have been inexplicably, but now predictably ignored.

First Lady Michelle Obama recently confessed to ABC’s Robin Roberts that their weekly Wednesday night cocktail parties in the White House get so wild that furniture has been broken.  In the interview, she further admitted to repeatedly warning her guests to tone it down.   A high school drama club could write this sketch.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently gifted President Obama a wooden penholder.  The wood used for the gift was taken from the timbers of the anti-slave ship HMS Gannett, whose sister ship supplied the wood used to make the Oval Office Resolute desk. The Prime Minister also gave the President a first edition biography of Churchill by Martin Gilbert. These are gifts that can only be described as priceless.  What did President Obama give to the Prime Minister in return?  A box set of “classic American movies” on DVD.

The DVDs, by the way are not formatted for viewing in Great Britain.   This story writes its own comedy.

Underscoring the power of comedy shows, President Obama decided to visit one just last week to tout his economic recovery plan.  “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” hosted the President for most of the hour-long broadcast.  This was the first time a sitting president visited the set of such a show.  During the taping, President Obama made an astounding gaffe that has since been all but forgotten if never mentioned in the case of the New York Times.

When asked about his poor bowling skills President Obama remarked, “It’s like — it was like Special Olympics or something.”  Couple this embarrassment with Vice President Joe Biden’s request for a paraplegic at a campaign rally to “stand-up” and be recognized ­ and you’ve got the new Martin and Lewis!

It can only be concluded that ratings and obvious comedic material are being pushed aside in favor of protectionist partisanship.

How about the newest head of the Internal Revenue Service, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner not paying his own taxes?  Nothing there?  SNL didn’t think so.  Multiple Obama cabinet appointees stepping down for unpaid taxes?  Not funny either.  Nine thousand earmarks in the President’s newly signed budget?  He promised a line-by-line scrutiny of wasteful spending only to tell us the day of the signing earmarks were useful?  Guess not.

When Jon Stewart excoriated CNBC’s Jim Cramer for “playing games” with financial reporting, the criticism rang hollow.  Cramer is no more a serious financial show than Stewart’s a serious showcase for journalism.  Stewart is correct in a broader sense.  Many in America can agree on the lack of serious, honest reporting on everything from finance and politics to faith and family within the newspapers and networks we used to rely upon.   Sadly, shows like Stewart’s and Saturday Night Live are where a growing number of people are turning for opinions and perspective.  This grants a tremendous pulpit of influence to these programs.  They may not acknowledge it publicly, but privately they are most certainly aware. The uninformed audience is just happy to be along for the show.

Here’s one for the pop-culture set.  A quote from the comic book, make that box-office hit Spider-Man: “With great power there comes great responsibility.”  Comedians and writers have great power today, but no sense of responsibility.   Responsibility is not funny, nor does comedy require it.

Comedians are clowns and modern day court-jesters, not journalists.  They write punch lines not bylines.  They frame the debate and craft the joke as they see their world ­ a world based exclusively in New York City and Los Angeles, by the way.  It doesn’t have to be “fair and balanced” because there is no such thing as ethics in comedy.  Indeed, comedy doesn’t have to be fair, or accurate, or responsible.   Individuals must be the judges of those things on their own.  But if comedians and writers expect us to collectively laugh at their work they must be honest with their audience once again.  That applies to this president and what is funny about him, too.

The truth about the Obama administration is that there is a lot to laugh about right now.  Perhaps there is a fear of implied racism or a lingering respect for the historic nature of the last election, or simple blind devotion to a man today’s comedy writers have invested in both financially and emotionally.  But for millions of Americans who did not vote for Barack Obama, and still millions more who see the daily folly of an administration full of missteps is to ignore truth.  Comedy without that grain of truth just isn’t funny.