Al Franken

Al Franken
File:Al Franken in Chanhassen.jpg Al Franken in Chanhassen, Minnesota. January 12, 2008.
Born	(1951-05-21) May 21, 1951 New York, New York
Education	Harvard University
Occupation(s)	comedian, actor, author, screenwriter, political commentator, politician and radio host
Political party	Democratic-Farmer-Labor
Spouse	Franni Bryson Franken
Children	Thomasin, Joe

Alan Stuart "Al" Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an Emmy Award–winning American comedian, actor, author, screenwriter, political commentator, radio host and, recently, politician. He is noted for his work on Saturday Night Live and his liberal political views. On February 14, 2007, Franken announced his candidacy for the 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota as a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. The seat is currently held by Republican Norm Coleman, and was previously held by Franken's close friend Paul Wellstone.

Biography

Personal life

Franken was born in New York City to Phoebe G. (Kunst), a homemaker and real estate agent, and Joseph P. Franken, a printing salesman. Franken had a Jewish upbringing and grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb near Minneapolis. Franken is a distant cousin of CNN's Bob Franken. His older brother, Owen Franken, is a photojournalist. Franken attended Saint Louis Park High School until the tenth grade. 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 general studies.

Franken met his wife, the former Franni Bryson, 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 (both attended New York City's Dalton School). Joe graduated from Princeton University in June 2007, 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 a Grateful Dead fan and used their songs as bumper music on his radio show. He acknowledged using cocaine while working for Saturday Night Live but no longer uses any illicit drugs.

Writer and performer

Al Franken entertaining at Ramstein Air Base, December 2000.

Franken's performing career began in high school, where he and longtime writing partner Tom Davis were known for their humor. 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 (1975-1980 and 1985-1995), albeit in the first season as "apprentice writers" splitting a paycheck of $350 a week. 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 routines 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, appearing in it as rock singers in a band called "Bad Mouth." They also had cameos together in The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash as promoter Ron Decline's (John Belushi) henchmen and in the Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd film Trading Places as the baggage handlers with the gorilla on the train.

Franken's most notorious SNL performance 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. Franken proclaimed that Silverman did not deserve a limo, unlike Franken, a comedian on a popular NBC program.

Besides having written five New York Times bestselling books, three of which reached #1 (including Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations), Franken wrote the original screenplay and starred in the film Stuart Saves His Family. He also co-wrote the film When A Man Loves A Woman. He co-created and starred in the NBC sitcom LateLine until it was cancelled in its second season. He appeared in the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate as Reporter #1-- a role he joked was made specifically for him, as "Reporter #1 didn't appear in the original version."

In 2003, Franken served as a Fellow with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Several years later, he became the first nationally syndicated radio talk show host to visit Iraq, where he headlined two USO shows while traveling with Russell Burnham, the U.S. Army Soldier of the Year. Franken has done seven USO tours to date, his most recent being in mid-December 2006.

Since May 2005, Franken has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. Franken's most recent book, The Truth (with jokes), was released on October 25, 2005.

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 writing called Savin' It!. The following month Franken explained that the subject matter of his book and the purpose of his abstinence letter to the Attorney General were in fact satirical, and apologized for "any discomfort" caused to conservative leaders, stating that they would receive a letter of apology.

Radio show

Main article: The Al Franken Show

Al Franken at the 2006 Time 100, as covered on the blog Rocketboom.

Franken signed a one-year contract in early 2004, to become a talk show host for Air America Radio's flagship program with co-host Katherine Lanpher (who remained with the show until October, 2005.) The inaugural broadcast kicked off the network's launch at noon EST on March 31, 2004. The show was originally named The O'Franken Factor, but was renamed The Al Franken Show on July 12, 2004. On October 13, 2006, Air America filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after which it was purchased by Green Family Media. Franken's last radio show on Air America Radio was aired on February 14, 2007. In the last segment of the show, Franken announced his candidacy for the United States Senate.

Fox News Conflict

Main article: Fox v. Franken

In August 2003, when Penguin Books published Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, Fox News sued, claiming infringement of its registered trademark phrase, "Fair and Balanced." Fox was unsuccessful, with the federal judge finding the lawsuit to be "wholly without merit." The debacle with Fox focused a great deal of media attention upon Franken's book, and is credited with enhancing its sales. Reflecting back on the lawsuit during an interview on the National Public Radio program Fresh Air 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.

Political action

Franken speaking in New York City

On SNL's Weekend Update segment in the late 1970s, Al Franken spoofed his ideas with a familiar line: "Vote for me, Al Franken. You'll be glad you did!" In 1999, Franken released a parody book, Why Not Me?, detailing his election to the Presidency in 2000. He had been a strong supporter of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone. Wellstone's death in a plane crash shortly before the 2002 Senate election had an effect on Franken. After the funeral, Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk radio hosts criticized the remembrance ceremony and its participants for alleged overt displays of left-wing political sentiment; columnists Peggy Noonan and Chris Caldwell asserted 20,000 people booed Trent Lott. Franken, who was in attendance, strongly denied there was widespread jeering, and stated: "Along with everyone else, I cried, I laughed, I cheered. It was, to my mind, a beautiful four-hour memorial. I didn't boo. Neither did 22,800 of the some 23,000 people there."

Franken said he learned that 21% of Americans received most of their news from talk radio, an overwhelmingly conservative medium at the time. Said Franken, "I didn't want to sit on the sidelines, and I believed Air America could make a difference." In November 2003, Franken publicly considered moving back to his home state of Minnesota to run for the Senate. The seat once held by Wellstone, now occupied by Republican Norm Coleman, was to be contested in the 2008 election. In 2005, Franken took the first step, announcing his move to Minnesota: "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." He said that he would run as a Democrat, stating that "Democrats care so much more for the poor than Republicans do".

Franken's books express strong support for abortion rights, gun control laws, same-sex marriage, environmental protections and a revamped, more progressive income tax system. In the postscript of The Truth (with jokes), 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. By early 2007, the PAC had raised more than $1 million.

Franken was the subject of a 2006 documentary film entitled Al Franken: God Spoke, which premiered in April of 2006 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City and was released nationally on September 13 of the same year.

2008 U.S. Senate campaign

File:Al Franken in Chanhassen.jpg

Al Franken campaigning for U.S. Senate

Main article: Minnesota United States Senate election, 2008

On January 29, 2007, Al Franken announced his departure from Air America Radio. On the day of his final show, February 14, Franken formally announced that he would run for the United States Senate for Minnesota in 2008. He is expected to be challenged by several other Democrats, including Mike Ciresi, a wealthy trial lawyer, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, a professor and activist, and Jim Cohen, an attorney and human rights activist.

On April 13, 2007, Al Franken's campaign finance report was filed. He was able to raise $1.35 million dollars in the first quarter of 2007. The incumbent senator, Norm Coleman, was able to raise $1.53 million dollars. On July 8, 2007, the Franken campaign stated that it expected to announce that Franken had out-fundraised Coleman during the second quarter of the year, taking in $1.9 million to Coleman's $1.6 million, although as of early July 2007, Coleman's $3.8 million cash on hand exceeded Franken's $2 million.

Views

Franken is opposed to the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, and has been a vocal critic of the war for several years; however, he supported the invasion at the time (a fact he often admitted, with regret, on his radio program). In an interview with the MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Franken said he "believed Colin Powell," whose UN presentation convinced him that the war was necessary. Franken now believes that Congress should refuse to pass appropriations bills to fund the war if they don't include timetables for leaving Iraq. In an interview with Josh Marshall, Franken said of the Democrats, "I think we've gotta make [Bush] say, 'OK, I'm cutting off funding because I won't agree to a timetable.'"

He favors transitioning to a universal health care system with the proviso that every child in America should receive healthcare coverage immediately and believes that pensions and Social Security should be protected. He wants to cut tax breaks for oil companies, increase money available for college students and cut interest rates on student loans.

Other Notable Events

Palace Theatre Rally

During the 2004 presidential election, Franken was at the Palace Theater in Manchester, New Hampshire, attending a rally for governor Howard Dean in his bid for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination. A heckler attempted to shout down the governor, who was taking questions from the audience. When theater manager Peter Ramsey tried to calm the situation, the man began pushing and elbowing Ramsey. According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, at that point Franken assisted Ramsey by temporarily restraining the heckler. When a second heckler appeared, "Franken and three other men escort[ed] the second heckler out the stage door." The first heckler then left quietly after Ramsey threatened to call the police. Franken said he wasn't backing Dean, 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."

Bibliography

Books by Al Franken

• The Truth (with jokes) (Dutton Books, 2005) ISBN 0-525-94906-2
• Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right (Dutton Books, 2003) ISBN 0-525-94764-7
• Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or Failing That, Happiness (Plume Books, 2003) ISBN 0-452-28450-3
• Why Not Me? (Delacorte Press, 1999) 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 (Delacorte Press, 1996) ISBN 0-385-31474-4
• I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough and Doggone It, People Like Me: Daily Affirmations By Stuart Smalley by Al Franken, Stuart Smalley (Dell, 1992) ISBN 0-440-50470-8

Books critical of Franken

• 100 People who are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg highlights Franken as #37 in his list of polarizing political and entertainment figures. (Harper Collins, 2005) ISBN 0-06-076128-8

CDs and compilations

• The Al Franken Show Party Album
• The O'Franken Factor Factor - The Best of the O'Franken Factor
• Best democracy money can buy: the truth about corporate cons, globalization, and high-finance fraudsters, with Greg Palast (2004)

Filmography

• Tunnel Vision (1976)
• The Rutles (1978)
• Trading Places (1983)
• Stuart Saves His Family (1995)
• From the Earth to the Moon (1998)
• Harvard Man (2001)
• Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004)
• The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
• Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable (2004)
• Tanner on Tanner (2004)
• Al Franken: God Spoke (2006)

External links

• Announcing his candidacy for the Senate
• Al Franken's official campaign website
• Al Franken on National Public Radio
• Al Franken at IMDb
• About.com Profile of Al Franken, 2008 Senate Candidate
• Al Franken Fan Club and Discussion Forum
• Al Franken commentary on 2006 elections
• Al Franken's PAC, Midwest Values PAC
• Al Franken Discussion Forum
• Al Franken's federal campaign contributions
• Al Franken Under the Satirist's Lens
• Al Franken's writings on the Huffington Post
• Is Al Franken Worthy to Take Wellstone's Seat?
• Al Franken quotes
• The Al Franken Show Audio Archive