On Television
KITMAN, MARVIN
On Television DIAL 900 FOR PRESIDENT BY MARVIN KITMAN The most fascinating television piece about the Democratic Presidential race that I have seen so far was aired last January 14 on NBC. It...
...Reubin Askew can blame his poor showing on Sarducci's campaign on his behalf...
...Still, as my son reminded me, I should shudder to think where ZZ Top stands politically...
...I would be really excited if ZZ Top was in the election...
...It was introduced on April 11, 1982, an electoral date that ranks with the first time a politician bought a voter a beer (1786...
...Cranston—7,707...
...He described the agony lobsters suffer, how they are scalded until they suffocate, adding: "You people are really sick...
...This is unfair...
...Since it cost 50 cents each time you registered your choice, if Piscopo was right the voters had to be the rich young...
...After 90 minutes, a quarter of a million votes had been counted on the famous "900" phone numbers...
...Later, Travanti urged, "Look at it this way, not every day do you get to play God...
...I can't believe he's running again...
...This-a may-a be the most a-boring a-vent in a-history," he said...
...Besides, what's 50 cents today anyway—the price of one designer chocolate chip cookie...
...Videos are more profound...
...Had SNL played'' Gimme All You Can," the race would have been a rout...
...We have them," Guido responded, playing a prepared video showing the eight Democratic candidates doing their thing to music, including Alan Cranston standing on his head...
...And he hasn't...
...Candidates, and Madison Avenue media consultants, are similarly mutating...
...They are, in case you are unfamiliar with their records, or videos, a heavy metal group...
...McGovern—7,747...
...It was the first National Phone-In Primary on Saturday Night Live...
...The Constitution says the President must be at least 35, and they are that —singly, or together...
...Countdown 84," as the National Phone-In Primary was dubbed, was anchored by Joe Piscopo and Mary Gross...
...Yet what does that prove...
...They could share the office...
...Last week they beat Deff Leppard on the Friday Night Videos...
...Would you think it was okay to let your pet dog or hamster or cat be boiled to death...
...A kid with a good automatic dialing card could sock it in for his candidate, compared to a kid who was dialing the 900 number manually...
...For the front-runner and titular head of the party lost by a landslide to the heavy metal group...
...This is not a joke...
...They can beat Fritz Mondale...
...Did they fear it would turn out that more people considered the fate of Larry the Lobster important than who represented the Democratic Party or the nation...
...on the other hand, that could have accounted for his relatively good showing...
...It's as real," said Piscopo, "as the nuclear threat...
...It further states the President must be a native-born country and western singer...
...You can't keep on giving voters those long, boring 30-second commercials...
...Jackson—66,988...
...The Cranston people can attribute their man's slim vote to the fact that the phone poll was not open to the West Coast due to time differences...
...The 400,000 people who called in their votes decided by a30,000margin that Andy Kaufman should never again appear...
...Hollings—6,469...
...The little scream...
...This is Larry the Lobster," he explained, holding up the crustacean...
...This is what had been expected...
...Mondale—16,199...
...We haven't had a bearded President, not counting Nixon, since Rutherford B. Hayes...
...But he was pacing back and forth nervously in the halls for nothing...
...Piscopo explained...
...Or Brandon Tartikoff could have won...
...Only 15 minutes after the polls opened at 11:30 p.m., the number of people who had called in already exceeded half the turnout expected this month in New Hampshire...
...The stakes in the voting were important...
...They're like a special, a mini-series episode, compared to the pace of videos...
...It's not the 14-year-olds...
...At 11:52 p.m...
...Up went the ZZ Top phone number—1-900-720-2888, a number that will live in the annals like "54-40 or Fight" or "23, Skiddoo...
...The comic touch always wins...
...Here are the final results: ZZ Top—131,384...
...The voting was by the Saturday Night Live audience—the so-called lunatic fringe of American politics...
...The problem, Murphy concluded, is that lobsters don't have pet names...
...Videovoting is one of the two major cultural contributions of Saturday Night Live in the 1980s (the other is Eddie Murphy...
...And who's to say there can't be a singer in The White House, now that we've had an actor...
...Turning directly to the audience, heasked, "Would you kill this lobster foryour enjoyment...
...Speaking as a parent, I think the new poll tax, which went directly to AT&T, was money well spent...
...The producer had hired a black-hooded executioner to do the honors and dispatch Larry...
...This is done on the David Letterman Show all the time...
...As they argued over the size of a lobster about to go into a pot, Eddie Murphy suddenly broke in...
...Father Guido Sarducci was on hand to give the event journalistic panache...
...It answered the question of how to get young people to vote—an ongoing problem since they got the right in 1971: Make the voting hours from 11:30 p.m...
...In case you don't know ZZ Top as well as Fritz Hollings," explained Gui-do the campaign manager, "we're going to play their video...
...In the final tally, the Save Larry vote emerged triumphant— 123,008 to 117,207...
...This idea of candidate videos may seem satirical...
...They usually last two and a half minutes...
...I recognize some of the candidates," he explained, "like Agnew...
...This was no problem, he pointed out, because the charge would be on their parents' phone bill...
...And it's too bad, because his career has gone into decline...
...By 1988, David Garth will be making political videos...
...It is where we get all our news, all our political speeches, all our State of the Union messages...
...But enough of this ancient history...
...I'm sorry, though, that a mockery was made out of the Presidential race...
...Next, an SNL writer made an eloquent defense of Kaufman...
...On came the video of "Sharp Dressed Man...
...SNL, in focusing young people's attention on the political process, was part of a rich tradition...
...Everybody's home having their pizza and calling in their votes...
...The grass roots pushed ZZ Top over the top...
...Did you ever know how they die...
...As we could see, ZZ Top was the sentimental favorite in the videovote...
...The sketch had Tony Rosato, an SNL regular, playing a chef, and guest host Daniel Travanti of Hill Street Blues playing a waiter...
...Introducing each of the eight candidates, and giving their respective 900 phone numbers, took almost as long as the Super Bowl...
...The question to be decided then was, "Should Larry the Lobster live or die...
...To save him call 1-900720-1808 [he said very fast...
...Where are the other candidates' videos...
...People never believed that political commercials were possible, that candidates could boil down the issues to 3 0 seconds...
...Of course, this was hardly a random sampling of the electorate...
...Were they afraid the kids wouldn't care about the Presidency unless they made a big joke of the race...
...ZZ Top would be twice as good, since there are two of them...
...My favorite columnist for the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano also explained the voting procedures, doing some editorializing along the way...
...I haven't got the heart to go on...
...It was also a better expenditure than the sums spent on other cultural activities, like buying new videos...
...If they gave out a T-shirt, I would vote for ZZ Top...
...At least it taught the kids something about civic reponsi-bility...
...If elected in November, the bearded ZZ Top would give a Lincolnesque air to The White House...
...and let them drink beer...
...Their name, asyoung-er authorities explain, comes from the wrapping on dope cigarette papers...
...Let's put it to a vote whether you want to kill Larry or save Larry...
...They're too drunk to care...
...Let's look at the record," they say...
...The only reason the outcome was so close is that "Sharp Dressed Man" is not the group's best video...
...Glenn—20,830...
...By throwing the ZZ Top into the ring at the 11th hour, the SNL producers were raising the ante with the comic touch...
...But why did they have to muck up the whole thing...
...TV viewers are mutating before our eyes now...
...the first posted results showed him with a 6:1 margin over his nearest opponent, Fritz "Wake Me Up When It's All Over" Mondale...
...Television is the Town Hall of the air...
...Askew—5,840...
...Must be the Syrian vote...
...Whoever came out on top in the initial primary contest of the 1984 campaign would get to wear the legend: "I Won the National Video Primary Election And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt...
...Soon it will be," Let's look at the video.'' Within moments of SNL's adding ZZ Top to the contest, Jesse Jackson's drive for victory was smashed...
...Even among the rich young 14-year-olds who were drunk (or the older people who were doing all the the voting), the National Phone-In Primary wasn't very scientific...
...The evening was incredible...
...to 1 a.m...
...It's the older people voting...
...And so it goes," Kurt Vonnegut would have said...
...Wait a minute," Piscopo protested, invoking the equal time rule...
...Piscopo and Gross had to keep assuring voters this was serious...
...We learn vital information, like candidates' names, from TV...
...Dick Ebersole, the producer, came on one night in 1983 and explained the problem to the audience: He could no longer stand Kaufman's antics...
...Jesse Jackson took an early lead as soon as the phones were open...
...You have to remember that music videos change scenes, or cut film, every three seconds...
...Darth Vader could have won...
...A lot of critical issues were raised, not the least being: Would Fritz Mondale accept the number two spot on the Democratic ticket, after having lost to ZZ Top...
...A similar experiment in popular democracy was staged on the critical issue of whether Andy Kaufman should be fired...
...Jesse Jackson was on his way to a historic lopsided victory in the nation's first videovote primary when Father Sarducci began electioneering between the polls...
...To kiU Larry call 1-900-720-1909 [hesaidv-e-r—r—-y slowly...
...The first national video primary was a super idea...
...But by 1988 they could be a standard feature of our elections...
...Eugene McCarthy and many political scientists have long said that the job was too much for one man...
...would not suggest ZZ Top isn't qualified for the Chief Executive's post...
...Why should people have to go to the polling booth just to vote...
...After 20 minutes, he gave the first results: Save Larry—56,893, Kill Larry—65,743...
...It consisted, according to Piscopo, of a lot of 14-year-olds who were drunk on beer, although probably no more than the average number of 14-year-olds in the population at large who are drunk on a Saturday night...
...Larry the Lobster for President...
...Call in...
...Other pundits said, "Wrong...
Vol. 67 • February 1984 • No. 3
