Encyclopedia
Alan Stuart Franken is an
American comedian,
actor, author, screenwriter, political commentator and radio host, noted for his liberal politics.
Franken first achieved national prominence on
Saturday Night Live is a weekly late night 90-minute American [i] comedy [i]-variety show [i] ...
as the writing and performing partner of Tom Davis. His more recent career accomplishments are politically oriented, authoring books such as
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations is a 1996 book by author and comedian Al Franken [i] ...
and serving as host of the flagship program from the liberal
Air America Radio network. He is currently considering running for the
United States Senate as a
Democrat, representing Minnesota, and in 2005 he established Midwest Values PAC to lay the groundwork for that possible campaign.
Personal life
Franken was born in
New York City into a
Jewish family, and grew up in
St. Louis Park,
Minnesota, in suburban
Minneapolis. He graduated in 1969 from
The Blake School, where he was on the
wrestling team. He attended
Harvard University and graduated
cum laude in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts in government.
Franken met his wife, Franni, in his first year at college at a Harvard-Simmons mixer, and they have been together ever since. They have a daughter, Thomasin, and a son, Joe . Joe attends
Princeton University and Thomasin is a public school teacher in New York City, with a degree in sociology from
Harvard University. The Frankens reside in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Franken is also a
Grateful Dead fan, as evidenced by the use of their music as segues to commercials on his radio show.
Franken is a distant cousin of
CNN's Bob Franken. His older brother, Owen Franken, is a
photojournalist.
Career
Writer and performer
Franken's performing career began in high school, where he and longtime writing partner Tom Davis were known as class clowns. Franken honed his writing and performing skills at Minneapolis's Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop theater specializing in political satire. He and Davis soon found themselves in "a life of near-total failure on the fringes of show business in Los Angeles."
Franken and Davis were recruited as two of the original writers on
Saturday Night Live is a weekly late night 90-minute American [i] comedy [i]-variety show [i] ...
. Franken was awarded three
Emmy Awards and seven Emmy nominations for his television writing and production. He created characters such as self-help guru
Stuart Smalley and schticks such as proclaiming the 1980s to be the "Al Franken Decade". Franken was associated with
SNL for over 15 years and in 2002 interviewed former
Vice President Al Gore while in character as Smalley. Franken and Davis wrote the script to the 1986 comedy film
One More Saturday Night and they both had roles as rock singers in a band called "Bad Mouth."
Franken's most notorious
SNL sketch may have been "A Limo for the Lame-O", a commentary delivered by Franken near the end of the 1979–80 season. Franken mocked controversial NBC president
Fred Silverman as "a total unequivocal failure" and displayed a chart showing the poor ratings of NBC programs. Al proclaimed that Silverman did not deserve a limo unlike Al, a comedian on a popular NBC program. According to associates of the show, Silverman's anger over the sketch helped prompt him to abandon negotiations with
SNL creator
Lorne Michaels and seek a different producer for
SNL's sixth season.
Besides having written five
New York Times is a newspaper [i] published in New York City [i] by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. [i] ...
bestselling books, three of which reached #1 , Franken wrote the original screenplay and starred in the theatrical flop
Stuart Saves His Family. He also co-wrote the hit film
When A Man Loves A Woman. These movies are still used as an aid by various addiction programs. He co-created and starred in the NBC sitcom
LateLine is a late night current affairs television [i] program on ABC TV [i] ...
, but low ratings led to its cancellation halfway through the second season, with only twelve of the nineteen episodes airing. He had a cameo as "Baggage Handler #2" in the
Eddie Murphy/
Dan Aykroyd film
Trading Places.
In 2003, Franken served as a Fellow with
Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. He also became the first nationally syndicated radio talk show host to visit
Iraq, where he headlined two
USO shows. Franken has done five USO tours to date.
Since May 2005, Franken has been a contributing blogger at
The Huffington Post. Franken's most recent book,
The Truth , was released on October 25, 2005. A film titled is scheduled for release in 2006
Radio Show
On January 13, 2004, it was announced that Franken would enter the
radio business. He signed a one-year contract to become a talk show host for
Air America Radio's flagship program,
The O'Franken Factor with co-host
Katherine Lanpher. The inaugural broadcast kicked off the network's launch at noon EST on March 31, 2004. Franken said that the he chose the "O'Franken" in the title was "to annoy and to bait" Bill O'Reilly to sue him again, thus bringing publicity to Franken's show. O'Reilly never did, so on July 12, 2004, the program was renamed
The Al Franken Show. Franken has said that one of his primary goals was to "get
Bush unelected", and that he might end the show if President Bush lost the 2004 election. He decided in 2005, after Bush's reelection, that he would do the show for at least two more years. In December 2005, the show moved from
New York to Minneapolis.
Franken has composed introductory theme songs for some of his regular guests. When introducing liberal think-tank director Christy Harvey, Franken sings the following song in a meandering lounge style over a piano track to the tune of "Misty":
- Talk to me
- Talk about the right wing's dishonesty
- She is the Center for American Progress's
- Director of Strategic Communications
- She's my Christy, Christy Harvey is here.
When introducing Judd Legum , Franken co-opts the melody of the popular Beatles song "
Hey Jude":
- Hey Judd
- Don't be a putz
- You were born to
- Be on our program today
- The minute you give us the scoop
- We'll know the poop
- And make it better.
As discussed on his 21 July 2006 radio program, Franken applies what he calls the "Tim Robbins Rule": He generally does not invite entertainment-industry celebrities to be guests on the show. The rule is named after actor
Tim Robbins based on a request Robbins made to be on the show, which Franken turned down . Franken clarified the rule to say that celebrities could not come on the show to talk about politics, but could come on to perform or sing .
Amid rumors of a pending announcement of bankruptcy by Air America, Franken has expressed confidence that the network and his program will continue, though he has admitted that the network has fallen behind in his pay. Franken makes a reported $2 million a year hosting his radio program. The show, along with the network as a whole, has struggled in ratings battles against more established programs, although The Al Franken Show has consistently been Air America's highest rated show.
Controversies
Radio Show
Franken's time at Air America Radio has not been without some scandal and controversy. In September of 2005,
The New York Sun is a daily newspaper [i] published in New York City [i]. ...
reported that Al Franken was among the signers of a confidential agreement in November 2004 that said the Air America network would repay $875,000 it had borrowed from the , a Bronx nonprofit organization. The legality of the loan is under criminal investigation by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Although Al Franken was one of the signers of the November 2004 confidential agreement to repay the Gloria Wise loan, Franken maintains that he was not aware of the details regarding Gloria Wise in the agreement and simply signed it under the advice of legal counsel . On September 8 2005,
The New York Sun quoted Air America CEO Danny Goldberg's defense of Al Franken: "Al Franken does not have and never had any responsibility for this loan." Piquant LLC, the parent company of Air America, has repaid the entire $875,000 into an escrow account.
In October 2005 his on-air partner
Katherine Lanpher left the show to meet a book deadline. In November, Franken told an audience in Berkeley, California that he would not seek a replacement for Lanpher.
Conflict with Fox News Channel
In August 2003,
Penguin Books published Franken's
.
Fox News sued, claiming that Franken infringed its registered
trademark rights in the phrase, "Fair and Balanced." Fox was unsuccessful, with a federal judge finding the lawsuit to be "wholly without merit." The lawsuit focused a great deal of media attention upon Franken's book and is credited with enhancing its sales. Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the
National Public Radio program
Fresh Air is a radio [i] show broadcast on National Public Radio [i] stations across the United States [i] ...
on September 3, 2003, Franken said that Fox's case against him was "literally laughed out of court," and added that the judge's comment that the case was "wholly without merit" was a good characterization of Fox News itself.
Apology to Attorney General and conservative leaders
In June 2003, Franken wrote a satirical letter to then Attorney General John Ashcroft., in which he asked Ashcroft to be a role model for the youth of America by sharing "a moment when you were tempted to have sex, but were able to overcome your urges through willpower and strength of character." Franken proposed including the contribution in a book he claimed to be was writing called
Savin' It!. Franken said he wanted administration officials who promoted premarital abstinence to provide examples of when they had actually abstained themselves, showing the youth that they "truly walked the walk — instead of just talking the talk — by not having sex until they are married." The letter stated that other conservative leaders had already submitted their testimonies. All of these figures either supported "abstinence from sex until marriage" promotional programs in school, or worked for people that did. The letter was written on letterhead from the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at
Harvard University's
Kennedy School of Government where Franken was a fellow at the time.
In truth, Franken was not writing a serious book about abstinence nor did he receive testimony from any of the people he mentioned. Al Franken claimed that the letter was obviously satirical. Although Franken's fans believed there was a prankish spirit in the letter. , some conservative critics claimed there was no obvious satirical intent in his actions and charged the comedian with being a hypocrite who lied in order to make fun of the concept of abstinence-only sex education programs.
The following month Franken wrote a letter of apology to Ashcroft in which he told the truth about the subject matter of his book, the purpose of his abstinence letter to the Attorney General, and apologized for "any discomfort" caused to conservative leaders whom he claimed to have responded to the letter but in reality had not-- and that they would receive the letter of apology. Franken expressed his biggest regret over "sending the letter on Shorenstein Center stationery", writing, "I am very embarrassed to have put them in this awkward and difficult position, and I ask you not to hold this against the Center, the Kennedy School or Harvard in general." He then asked that Ashcroft take his "original letter with a measure of humor with which it was intended."
The Takedown
In the early stages of the 2004 presidential election, Franken was at a support rally at the Palace Theater in Manchester, New Hampshire for governor
Howard Dean in his bid for the Democratic Party nomination. A supporter of perennial candidate
Lyndon LaRouche attempted to shout down the governor, who was taking questions from the audience. Two members of Dean’s security team immediately moved toward the man, who shoved and elbowed them. According to the
New Hampshire Union Leader, "... Franken emerged from the crowd and was elbowed in the face by the heckler, knocking the comedian's glasses off. Franken, a former highschool wrestler, used a takedown move to attempt to immobilize the man." The heckler then managed to scramble over a few people onto a balcony railing, screaming at Dean. He eventually left the premises after theater manager Peter Ramsey threatened to call police. Franken said his tackle had nothing to do with Dean specifically, but that he was upholding the right to free speech, and that he "would have done it if [the heckler] was a Dean supporter at a Kerry rally." Conservative bloggers criticized Franken for physically assaulting somebody speaking his mind.
Political aspirations
Franken had been a strong supporter of
Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, who was killed in a plane crash shortly before the 2002 elections.
Franken announced in November 2003 that he was considering moving back to Minnesota, his home state, to run for the Senate seat held by Wellstone's successor
Norm Coleman in the 2008 election. On April 28 2005,
Salon.com reported that Franken, who had previously promised that if he was to run for office he would move to Minnesota and broadcast from the
Twin Cities, was doing just that. "I can tell you honestly, I don't know if I'm going to run, but I'm doing the stuff I need to do, in order to do it," Franken said. He has said that he would run as a Democrat, stating that "Democrats care so much more for the poor than Republicans do".
He talked about his political aspirations when he went on
The Daily Show is a Peabody [i]- and Emmy [i]-winnin ...
on October 25, 2005 to promote his book,
The Truth , saying that if he ran, he would run on a platform of universal health coverage and expanding alternative energy -- a message that he would repeat on the March 15, 2006 episode of
The Colbert Report, is an Emmy Award [i]-nominated American [i] satirical [i] ...
.
Stephen Colbert jokingly egged him on to make a declaration, asking him to announce his candidacy right then , but Franken refused. He has previously claimed that he would not be able to decide if he would run for a seat in the Senate until 2007, stating that he has written this in a chapter of his new book.
Franken's books express strong support for abortion rights,
gun control laws,
same-sex marriage, environmental protections and a revamped income tax system burdening the wealthy more than the poor and middle classes. In the postscript of
The Truth , Franken joked that if elected to the Senate, in the two week window between the Senate's swearing in and Bush's leaving office, he would push for a "quickie impeachment."
In late 2005, Franken started his own political action committee called Midwest Values PAC. In a period of a little over two months, the PAC raised nearly $170,000.
Books
- The Truth ISBN 0-525-94906-2
- ISBN 0-525-94764-7
- Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or Failing That, Happiness ISBN 0-452-28450-3
- Why Not Me? is a satirical [i] ...
a parody-journal of the fictional “Franken campaign” for President ISBN 0-385-31809-X - Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations is a 1996 book by author and comedian Al Franken [i] ...
ISBN 0-385-31474-4 - by Al Franken, Stuart Smalley ISBN 0-440-50470-8
CDs and Compilations
- The Al Franken Show Party Album
- The O'Franken Factor Factor - The Best of the O'Franken Factor
Trivia
- Had a brief role in one scene of the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon. His character counsels President John F. Kennedy's advisers to send an unmanned ship to the moon, scoop up some rocks, and send them around the world "for propaganda purposes" rather than sending human explorers there, adding, "It sure as hell won't cost 20 billion dollars."
References
External links
