Profile of Al Franken on Famous Like Me

Al Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American satirist, comedian, bestselling author, and radio host with a predominantly liberal point of view. Franken was half of the comedy duo "Franken & Davis" which wrote for and performed for NBC’s Saturday Night Live. He is currently the host of Air America Radio's flagship program, The Al Franken Show.

Personal life

Franken was born in New York City into a Jewish family, and grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. He graduated from The Blake School in 1969, where he was on the school wrestling team, and Harvard University in 1973.

He and his wife, Franni Franken, have a son, Joe, and daughter, Thomasin. Joe attends Princeton University and Thomasin is a public school teacher in New York City. The Frankens currently reside in New York City but they are in the process of moving to Minneapolis.

Al Franken is a distant cousin of CNN's Bob Franken. His older brother, Owen Franken, is a photojournalist.

Career

Writer and performer

Franken's writing and performing career began at Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis where he met long-time partner Tom Davis. He and Davis soon found themselves in "a life of near-total failure on the fringes of show business in Los Angeles."¹

Franken and Davis were recruited as two of the original writers on Saturday Night Live (1975-1980, 1985-1995). 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"². Franken was associated with SNL for more than 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 Lamo," a commentary delivered by Franken near the end of the 1979–80 season. Franken mocked the controversial president of NBC, Fred Silverman, describing him as "a total unequivocal failure" and displayed a chart showing the poor ratings of NBC programs. According to associates of the show, Silverman's anger over the sketch prompted him to abandon negotiations with the show's creator Lorne Michaels and seek a different producer for the sixth season of SNL.

Besides having written numerous books (including Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations), Franken co-wrote (with his former partner Tom Davis) the screenplay for The Coneheads TV show. He also 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. He co-created and starred in the NBC sitcom LateLine, but low ratings led to its cancellation halfway through the second season, with only twelve of the nineteen episodes airing.

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 he's been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

His new book The Truth (with jokes) will be released on October 25, 2005

Conflict with the Fox News Network

In August 2003, Penguin Books published Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. 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 greatly enhanced its sales. Reflecting later 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 that "wholly (holy) without merit" is a good characterization of Fox News itself.

See also: Great Liberal Backlash of 2003.

Apology to Attorney General and conservative leaders

In June of 2003, Franken wrote a letter to then Attorney General John Ashcroft asking for a contribution to a serious book Franken was supposedly writing on abstinence programs in the public school system. In the letter, Franken asked the Attorney General to "share a moment when you were tempted to have sex, but were able to overcome your urges through willpower and strength of character..." and stated that other conservative leaders (HHS secretary Tommy Thompson, William J. Bennett, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, Senator Rick Santorum and then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice) had already submitted their testimonies.

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 working on a serious book about abstinence nor had he received testimony from any of the people he mentioned.

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 orignal letter to the Attorney General, and apologized to the conservative leaders he lied about in his original letter.

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."

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 12 Noon EST on March 31, 2004. Franken stated that the reason why he chose the "O'Franken" name was "to annoy and to bait" Bill O'Reilly to sue him again, to bring publicity to the show. O'Reilly never did, so on July 12, 2004, the program was renamed The Al Franken Show.

Franken said that one of his goals was to "get Bush unelected" and that he might end the show if Bush lost the 2004 election. He decided in 2005, after Bush won reelection, that he would keep doing the show for at least two more years.

In October 2005 his on-air partner Katherine Lanpher left the show to meet a book deadline. AAR has not announced a replacement for Lanpher.

Gloria Wise loan case

In July, 2005 the Bronx News issued a report alleging that $480,000 was loaned to Progress Media, the original owners of Air America Radio, by the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club of Co-op City in the Bronx. Since the club is heavily funded by the City of New York, the legality of such a transfer between Progress Media and Gloria Wise is in question. Franken has stated that he did not know any details about the loan. However, Franken was a signatory to a settlement agreement which includes details of the loan from Gloria Wise to Progress Media. For more information see Air America Loan Controversy.

Political aspirations

Franken had been a strong supporter of Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, who was killed shortly before the 2002 election in a plane crash.

Franken announced in November 2003 that he was considering moving back to Minnesota, his home state, in order to run for the Senate seat held by Wellstone's successor Coleman in the 2008 election. He has also said that he'd take lessons from Democratic New York Senator Hillary Clinton on how to successfully run for U.S. Senate. 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".

Books

• The Truth (with jokes) (Dutton Books, 2005) ISBN 0525949062
• Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right (Dutton Books, 2003) ISBN 0525947647
• Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or Failing That, Happiness (Plume Books, 2003) ISBN 0452284503
• Why Not Me? (Delacorte Press, 1999) a parody-journal of the fictional “Franken campaign” for President ISBN 038531809X
• Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations (Delacorte Press, 1996) ISBN 0385314744
• 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 0440504708

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