Line #38 Creator/AlFranken


1	[[quoteright:255:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/al_franken_photo.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:255:No, this isn't Creator/LewisBlack.]]
3
4	Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American comedy writer, occasional actor, political satirist, and former U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
5
6	First known as a writer and bit player on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' in the 1970s with fellow writer Tom Davis, Franken left the show after it changed producers in 1980 but returned five years later along with Creator/LorneMichaels, helping contribute to its resurgence over the following decade. (Franken is ''[=SNL=]'s'' longest-running feature player who was never promoted to cast member as of 2011.) A film based on his recurring Stuart Smalley character, ''Film/StuartSavesHisFamily'', was released in 1995 and flopped. In the late '90s he became a bestselling author, with a strong liberal political bent. He also appeared in a few other (largely forgettable) films, and hosted a radio TalkShow on the short-lived Air America network.
7
8	In 2009, he became the Junior Senator from Minnesota in a very close, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Minnesota,_2008 frighteningly protracted election]]. His re-election in 2014 was more of a CurbStompBattle, in which he defeated his opponent by ten points. Interestingly, as a Senator, he was rather mild-mannered, level-headed, and kind of sheepish. Didn’t stop him from making frequent jokes, though.
9
10	Oh, and he can freehand draw an accurate map of the United States of America (mostly the continental 48) ''from memory'' (a skill he once displayed on a late-'80s ''Saturday Night Live'' episode, showing then-''Weekend Update'' anchor Creator/DennisMiller where the electoral college votes would be for the 1988 election).
11
12	He's also really fast with a gun. Freakishly fast. In fact, he is an acknowledged quick draw champion and once claimed to be the third fastest in the U.S.
13
14	In December 2017, due to allegations of sexual misconduct, Franken announced his resignation from the Senate, before formally resigning on January 2, 2018.[[note]]and yes, ''SNL'' did make fun of that, though not as savagely as one would hope[[/note]]
15
16	Since his resignation, Franken hosted the podcast, ''The Al Franken Podcast'', embarked on a comedy tour in 2021, and was a GuestHost on ''Series/JimmyKimmelLive'' in 2022 and ''Series/TheDailyShow'' in 2023. He has also expressed interest in running for office again, with both himself and his Democratic colleagues regretting the circumstances of how he stepped down.
17
18	----
19	!!His books include:
20	* ''I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!: Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley''
21	* ''Radio/RushLimbaugh Is a Big FatIdiot and Other Observations''
22	* ''[[Literature/WhyNotMe Why Not Me? The Making and Unmaking of the Franken Presidency]]''
23	* ''Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or Failing That, Happiness''
24	* ''Lies and [[ThatLiarLies the Lying Liars]] Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right''
25	* ''The Truth ([[LifeEmbellished With Jokes]])''
26	* ''Al Franken, Giant of the Senate''
27
28
29
30	----
31
32	!!Tropes associated with Franken include:
33
34	* AllMythsAreTrue: He admits he got the infamous "Jew call" [[labelnote: Short explanation]]Allegations that various Jewish employees in the World Trade Center were warned not to show up on 9/11 by Israeli agents.[[/labelnote]] in ''Lies'', though he ''may'' have been joking, given the way he goes about it.
35	--> "To tell you the truth, I got the Jew call...from former New York mayor Ed Koch. 'Al', he said, 'Don't go to work on the 23rd day of Elul.'"
36	* ArchEnemy: [[Series/TheOReillyFactor Bill O'Reilly]]. See below, and also [[http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/oreilly-falafel-suit-turns-five?page=11 here]].
37	* BitingTheHandHumor: Franken describing the failures of then-Creator/{{NBC}} president Fred Silverman on ''SNL'''s "Weekend Update" segment in 1980, in what came to be known as the "Limo for the Lame-o" affair.
38	* TheCameo: He's been a guest star on his friend (and fellow Minnesotan) Garrison Keillor's radio show ''Radio/APrairieHomeCompanion'' where he's done pretty good impression of Henry Kissinger.
39	* CreatorBacklash: He had to disavow a great deal of his earlier, more ribald work to run for the Senate.
40	* CouldSayItBut
41	** The so-called "Kidding on the Square" version is closely associated with Franken, particularly in the ''Lying Liars'' era.
42	** The relative lack of this in his political career is mostly thanks to his getting dressed down by his fellow senators when he tried cracking wise on the floor.
43	* TheEponymousShow: ''The Al Franken Show'', previously known as ''The O'Franken Factor''.
44	* GameShowAppearance: Three times on Series/{{Jeopardy}}. The first time, a category was "[[Series/SaturdayNightLive SNL Presidential Players]]." After [[ForegoneConclusion running the category]], he leaned over to [[Series/CountdownWithKeithOlbermann Keith Olbermann]] and said that he ''wrote'' the skits featured in four of the five clues (likely the only one he didn't was Robert Smigel's "X-Presidents").
45	* GoshDangItToHeck: In ''Al Franken, Giant of the Senate'', he eliminates all the cussing that marked his previous books, because he has to hold himself to a higher standard of discourse (well, he doesn't ''have'' to, but it's expected of a Senator). So instead, he uses words like jerk, [[InherentlyFunnyWords poppycock, fiddle-faddle, nincompoopery, and world-class butthole]], the last to refer to [[TakeThat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).]]
46	* TheGunslinger: The QuickDraw type. He is a QuickDraw champion in real life. In ''Lies,'' he claims he is 3rd ranked in the US, in response to [[Series/TheOReillyFactor Bill O'Reilly]] saying that in TheWildWest he'd have shot Franken in a ShowdownAtHighNoon.
47	* HiddenDepths: For those who primarily know him from his work on ''SNL''; he's a Harvard graduate, and has proven rather competent as a Senator since assuming office in 2009.
48	* LetsSeeYouDoBetter: He has probably received vituperations of this sort from various factions. His response was to get himself elected to the United States Senate.
49	* MommasBoy: {{Inverted}} real-life example-Franken admits that in his childhood, he cheered for [[UsefulNotes/RichardNixon Nixon]] in the 1960 presidential election because he was fonder of his father, then a registered Republican (they both switched four years later when the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater for President), than he was of his mother, a registered Democrat. Al's older brother, meanwhile, cheered for [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy Kennedy]], which he attributes to "a visceral aversion to Nixon."
50	* MoodWhiplash: A particularly bad case in ''Lies''. Chapter 25 details how the Republicans exploited Paul Wellstone's death for political gains, and ends on a bittersweet note. Chapter 26? Franken goes to the White House Correspondents Dinner and {{troll}}s all the righties there. Uh-huh.
51	* MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting: Explained in ''Lies''.
52	-->'''Franken''': We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, [[MyCountryRightOrWrong everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad]]. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, [[WartsAndAll taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow]].
53	* OddFriendship: In ''Giant of the Senate'' he explains that, as a Senator, one is obligated to work with members of the opposing party to get anything done, and so he must find Republicans that share his views on particular issues, even if they disagree on everything else. This often results in friendships with people who would ordinarily be political opponents, but politics aside, he gets along well with some of his Republican colleagues.
54	* OfCorpseHesAlive: Briefly discussed in ''Lies''; one of Franken's friends believes that Strom Thurmond may have died as much as 3 years before the book was published, and the GOP is pursuing this strategy so the Democratic governor of South Carolina doesn't appoint a Democrat to fill the seat.
55	* PaintingTheMedium: When ever he writes Alan Colmes' name in ''Lies,'' he uses a smaller font to emphasize how Colmes is dominated by Sean Hannity in his role of FoxNewsLiberal. e.g. ''Hannity and [--Colmes--]''
56	* PassThePopcorn: The only accurate description of his senior Senator UsefulNotes/AmyKlobuchar's reaction to Franken deciding to cut Ted Cruz -- [[TheFriendNobodyLikes infamously the most hated man in the Senate]] by ''both'' sides -- down to size.[[note]]For context, the full anecdote involves Klobuchar attempting to get Cruz's blessing for a joke about him at the Gridiron Dinner -- where politicians tell jokes, essentially -- and Cruz (unfunnily) "rewriting" it for her. At that point, Franken turned his "rewrite" back around on him.[[/note]]
57	-->Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Amy having two successive thoughts:
58	--->1. 'Oh no, Al's not going to do this!'
59	--->2. 'But I definitely want to be here if he does.'
60	* QuickDraw: He is an acknowledged quick draw champion. It made the joke Bill O'Reilly once told about settling things with Franken like they did in the days of the old west hilariously ironic given that if that was the case, Franken would've been easily able to kill O'Reilly in such a duel.
61	* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated: Al writes in ''Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot'' that his research assistant Geoff Rodkey contracts Lyme disease and dies.[[note]]Meant as a blackly comedic denouement of a series of chapters on the complexities of the legal system as it deals with health care and employee/employer lawsuits,[[/note]] Many of Al's readers apparently did not get the joke, and thought Geoff was really dead. A few sent Al letters telling him what a horrible person he was, working his assistant to death. In the paperback edition of ''Rush'', he assures his readers that Geoff is alive and well (wrapping up this addendum by once again announcing that Geoff has died).
62	* StealthParody: The title of ''Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot'' is a deliberate parody of Limbaugh's style of debate largely involving hurling personal insults at his opponents, and this becomes clear when you read the whole book, but most who aren't familiar with Franken's style of satire will take it as a straight-up AdHominem. In one of his later books he describes [[DontExplainTheJoke his attempt to explain this]] to someone who didn't get the joke, with limited success.
63	* StreisandEffect: Fox News sued Al for using the phrase "Fair and Balanced" (according to Al, this was to placate Bill O'Reilly), trying to block the publishing of ''Lies''. The lawsuit was quickly thrown out by the courts, as there is a longstanding exception to copyright law for satire and parody, and in response to all the free publicity about the lawsuit, the publisher increased the initial print run.
64	* TakeThat:
65	** "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" could be interpreted as this.
66	** ''Lies and the [[ThatLiarLies Lying Liars]] Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right''.
67	* {{Troll}}: Al books are full of instances of him humorously screwing with people he doesn't like and/or agree with, like meeting Bush administration officials at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and congratulating them on their effective use of UsefulNotes/BillClinton's military in Iraq and Afghanistan, sending a number of conservative politicians and pundits letters asking for inspirational stories about their struggle to remain sexually abstinent until marriage (and not getting a single response back), or messing with his "tracker" [[note]]a person hired by an opposing political candidate to follow their opponent around with a video camera, in the hope of recording something embarrassing or inappropriate[[/note]] by constantly repeating a conversation (advocating for the purchase of a pull-out couch) with his driver, every single time he got out of the car.
68	* XMustNotWin: In ''Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them'', he says this is one aspect of American politics he deeply hates, calling it the "I-will-stop-you-from-doing-good-because-I-don't-want-you-to-get-credit" factor.
69

Context Creator / AlFranken