From ‘SNL’ to US Senate, satirist Al Franken sworn in as MN senator

June 30, 9:39 PMDC Art Travel ExaminerMarsha Dubrow

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC Art Travel Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

 

After a bitter eight-month battle, satirist and author Al Franken (look right) was finally sworn in as the junior U.S. Senator from Minnesota on July 7.

It had been a long-day’s-journey-into-night struggle for the former “Saturday Night Live” comedian. Franken is not the first professional comedian to serve in the U.S. Congress, and he's hardly the first professional actor or performer  to win a seat in either hallowed chamber of Congress. 

The only current Member of Congress with a pro performing background is former lead singer of Orleans, John Hall, a Democratic Representative from New York.

But speaking of comedians, Ben Jones had played "Crazy Cooter" in the TV show "Dukes of Hazzard" before serving as a Democratic Congressman from Georgia from 1989-1993. Remember “Gopher” goes to the U.S. House from “The Love Boat” and Iowa? Sonny Bono co-starred with Cher before serving in the House. Hollywood song-and-dance man George Murphy co-starred with Ronald Reagan, with Shirley Temple, and even Judy Garland before going over the rainbow to that true land of Oz -- DC, and the Senate.

And speaking of the Senate and serious actors, Fred Thompson had been best known as an actor, playing District Attorney Arthur Branch on “Law and Order”, and an admiral in the film “The Hunt for Red October”, when elected in 1994 to fill the Tennessee Senate seat of Al Gore who had resigned to become Vice President. 

But Thompson had earned his congressional credentials two decades earlier as Republican counsel to the famed "Watergate Committee" whose revelations led to President Nixon’s resignation to avoid impeachment. Thompson served in the U.S. Senate from 1994-2002. His will-I-or-won't-I flirtation with a 2008 Presidential run became a bit of a joke.

Fred Grandy, best known as “Gopher” (look right) in the TV series “The Love Boat”, served as a U.S. Representative from northwest Iowa from 1987-1994. "If there were no Gopher, there would be no Fred Grandy for Congress," he acknowledged once to “People” Magazine. Although Grandy’d played a dummy, he was no dummy. He had attended the prestigious prep school Phillips Exeter Academy in NH, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.

Sonny Bono served as a U.S. Representative from California 1995-1998 until his death in a skiing accident.

George Murphy won California's 1964 Senate race by defeating Pierre Salinger who'd been President John F. Kennedy's press secretary. 

"The Senate has never before had a professional comedian, but we've had some funny people in the Senate," Assistant Senate Historian Betty Koed told me. She agreed that Fred Thompson and George Murphy were the only two actors who became senators. When asked whether she'd gotten jokes about her name, Koed, she say, "Oh, gosh, oh gosh, yes."

The House historian directed me to the websites Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and Women in Congress, for additional House members with such prior careers.

The best known -- for her heroic clashes with Rep. Richard Nixon -- was Helen Gahagan Douglas, a former opera singer and actress before serving as a Democrat Representative from California (1945-1951). Douglas lost the 1950 race for one of California's two U.S. Senate seats, during which she dubbed Nixon "Tricky Dick" and he called her the "Pink Lady". The campaign remains "the dirtiest in state history," according to a fascinating book, "Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas -- Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950" by Greg Mitchell (Random House).

Rep. Charlotte Reid had sung as Annette King in the popular radio show Don McNeil's "Breakfast Club" before serving as a Republican from Illinois from 1963-1971.

Back to the present, seriously. Franken earned a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University. He was named a fellow at Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy. And Franken's books on politics have topped "The New York Times" best-seller list:  “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot (and other observations)", "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right", and "The Truth (with jokes)."

One thing that's no joke -- Franken had only 312 more votes than his rival, the incumbent Senator Norm Coleman -- so every vote does count in every election.