Hello. I've been up writing all night…so between that and Daylight Saving Time, I have my body clock thoroughly confused. Here are a few topics I've been meaning to cover…
Writing about the recent Selma march the other day, I said that "…the chances of seeing an important Republican leader get into the main part of that historic photo might have doubled if, say, two of them had showed up." If we're going to be accurate, we should note that there were other elected Republicans there and depending on your definition of "important," some of them could qualify. Senators Rob Portman, Jeff Sessions and Tim Scott were in that crowd somewhere, as was House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and others of lesser stature.
I think the principle behind my statement still holds. The two most prominent Republican leaders are probably John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. They weren't there. The Republican who is most recognizable is probably John McCain. He wasn't there. No one who seems to be out to lead his party in 2016 was present. Rand Paul was back in his home state. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham and Scott Walker were in Iowa for an Agricultural Summit. If they'd all been there, since they're all so recognizable, some of them would surely have been in that photo.
Changing Subjects: Tilt Araiza posted this on my Facebook page. He seems to know of what he writes…
Re:how the Monty Python "Choreographed Party Political Broadcast" sketch got removed. That episode of Monty Python was rerun in 1974 in the runup to a General Election (there were two that year thanks to the inherent kinkiness of the British Parliamentary system). The rules as what TV shows can say and do in the time when an election has been officially called are pretty strict and a sketch like that is exactly the kind of thing that gets cut (the sketch show Not The Nine O'Clock News had its first series cancelled after one episode in 1979 because an election was called). The BBC either wiped or maybe even carried out the edit on the original master.
Also on Facebook, Adel Khan asked if I'd ever had an encounter with Sam Simon, the popular TV writer-producer who passed away the other day following a long, gallantly-managed illness. Others have written to ask so here's what I told Adel…
I spoke to Sam on the phone a couple of times when he was working on cartoon shows at Filmation. He called me about something so inconsequential, I really don't remember it but it was long before he got into the sitcom world. That's all I remember. Everyone I know who knew him spoke highly of the man so I wish I'd gotten to meet him for real.
Here's what some people who did know him well had to say about the guy.