MY HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED

Last night I was watching that special by the crew at SNL, pulling together all their wonderful spoofs on the current election, and moments from elections past. It occurred to me that so much has changed over the years since I was old enough, it not to vote, at least to be paying attention to politics. The first US presidential election that made any impact on me was the 1960 one between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. I remember we had a "mock debate" at my grade school (and it got pretty heated, as I recall, at least for a bunch of 13-year-olds). And on the radio, we had a cute little novelty song, called "Report to the Nation." This was a spoof interview with candidate named (I think it was) Finnerty as John F. Kennedy, by newscasters Nutley and Winkly (aka Huntley and Brinkley). The interviewers asked questions and the candidate's answers were all spliced bits of lyrics from well-known songs of the day. It was a laff-riot...back then anyway. Then we advanced to the silly and sophisticated era of SNL, and their hilarious election spoofs, in the heyday of Chevy Chase et al, with folks gathered around the TV. And now we have YouTube, and a media culture that's completely portable. Everybody is getting into the act, and items can be around the world in literally minutes. I looked in vain to find Nutley and Winkly on YouTube, so I can't post it for you here. Oh well, some of the references would be pretty obscure to the younger set. Even some of the early SNL material would be pretty out-of-date by now. So today, the big Election Day, I'll just post one of my favorites. It's made the rounds, and been on a few blogs, but it's just too good to miss, so if you haven't seen it before, you'll be glad you did. Even if you're of a different political persuasion, you have to admit, in your heart of hearts, this is funny. Plus, there's some real genuine talent here!





Video by YT member pfte1
Photo at www.davidsarnoff.org.com