A Real Interview with Al Franken


Yes, believe it or not, I actually got to sit down and talk to Al. Al is a great guy whose knowledge and humor makes him a fun and down to earth person. I met Al over the internet and his 'team' set us up to meet each other. Al was in Hawaii for spring break of '97 and had a two hour stopover at the Honolulu International Airport. I got to speak to him and it was one of the best things that ever happened in my life. It's not every day or every lifetime that you get to met a guy that you admire and enjoy. This format is more of Al's comments on things rather than a Q&A format.

Do you disapprove of the things on television?
"No."

SNL in the early years:
"Very exciting. Mainly a great thing."

Bob Woodward:
"Wired (The John Belushi story) was terrible. My old partner Tom Davis compared Wired to. . . as if someone did your high school or college year book and had called it 'Puked.' All it was is who had puked, why they had puked and what they had eaten before they puked. . . (he) had no appreciation for anyone. . .didn't go into drug addiction."

Drug Abuse and Stuart Smalley:
"I did take acid that night (that he wrote the "Final Days" sketch for SNL). I'm not thrilled. . . I never had a drug addiction problem. I saw the toll that it takes with John (Belushi) and other people. And part of the reason that I started doing Stuart Smalley was sort of an-not as an answer-it wasn't as like a public statement to what SNL had done earlier, but it was more a personal statement."

Asiagate :
"Well, I don't know what to think about it. It seems to. . .I'm a shill for the president. So I defend him. I'm not shocked about anything. Republicans raise 60% more than the Democrats. I'd rather have a guy leading our party who wins and can raise money and maybe George McGovern wouldn't have had people coming to the White House. A couple things were egregious.

"There was something rather disturbing, which was that they were Asian Americans and if someone had the name 'Homgrin' no one would go 'Hey, there's a Swedish American giving money,' and there's this guy raising money named Levine; so you're getting into a situation where Asian Americans are giving money and there being targeted. On the other hand, if you have an Asian American who worked for an Asian company who owned a Chinese restraunt in Little Rock, Arkansas and now suddenly they're the head of some big commerce department, and their main job is to get money for foreign businesses. . .I believe in campaign finance reform.
"But you can't have Republicans looking at this and saying "My god, he had . . .people gave money and was invited to stay in the White House." Why is that such a shocking thing when people gave money to them and came into their committee rooms and wrote legislation. That's shocking. That's why I don't see this resonating with people. . .the shock is humorous. . . I also don't like when Democrat have overstated when the targeting of Asians are racist. Sometimes I get uncomfortable when the spector of racism in trivialised."

Starting his career :
"I did stand-up. . .(I) was one of the very few comedy writers that didn't write for the (Harvard) Lampoon. . . I wanted to, I tried to, but didn't get in."

Lateline :
"I think it's going well. . . It will be sort of a cross between Larry Sanders and Murphy Brown, but not like either of them. . .We are a show that will be shot in front of an audience. . .Hopefully it will be smart."

Wife (Franni) and Family:
"We got married before the show. I've had the same wife for twenty years. We knew each other since we were 17. . .We met at a mixer. . .I saw her there and asked her to dance. When my daughter (Tomasin, 16) was six, she was suppose to ask her parents how her parents met, so what happened was I met her at the mixer, asked her to dance, bought her a ginger ale and escorted her back to dorm and made a date for several days later. So my daughter wrote 'My dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink and took her home.' "

Rush :
"He was so associated with the Gingrich Revolution that they (media) sort of discredited him with it. . .No mainstream politico will now be seen with him. . . I don't think the book did him much good either. It became cool to call him a big fat idiot."

Academy Awards :
"I was bored, along with most people. They had four things that were awful. One was the importance of people watching films. It was one of those films about people watching films. . .it was just fillers."

The book "Al Franken is a Bucktooth Moron" :
"I talked to this guy (author of the book) and he got mad that my book wasn't balanced. Then I said to him 'where is that written?' He actually took a position that a satirist should take both sides. It was very confusing. . .it (the book) wasn't terrible. I read some of it."

One More Saturday Night (First movie written with Tom Davis) :
"I was disappointed with it. . .we (Tom) were sort of left out of the process."

Stuart and Rush :
"Some people get confused. There are some people who get angry about the fat part. I try to explain to them that I meant it ironically."

The Stuart movie:
"... when a movie loses 15 million bucks, studios don't exactly break down your door to make a sequel."

A big, big, big thanks to Al for doing the interview and everything else.