Thursday, February 03, 2005

WKRP On Foreign Policy

I re-watched some episodes of WKRP In Cincinnati (aka the show that just can't quite make it to DVD), and was reminded that between the comments of Herb Tarlek and Les Nessman, you could find some throwaway political jokes that still be surprisingly relevant -- or at least effective -- today:

LES: In other news, General Wallace Nasami, head of the emerging nation of Nibia, denied his government was a dictatorship, and promised free elections as soon as each citizen of the small country learned to play a musical instrument.

LES (just after the Iranian Hostage crisis): ...And blow the whole country, oil fields and all, right off the map. (Later in the same episode) ...We could take out Iraq too, and then apologize and say it was just a typographical error.

HERB: I'm telling you, without that "Greenhouse effect," we'd all freeze to death.
LES: Not so!
HERB: Les, it would be one hundred degrees below zero at night!

HERB: And that's why I say with the proper military backing, we can go anywhere in the world and say: "We are Americans! Give us your girls!"

LES: In a situation like this, I always ask myself, what would my hero Edward R. Murrow think? And I think that Ed would think that this was censorship. Then I think about what my other hero, General George Patton, would think, and I think George would think that radio and television ought to be cleaned up, and if he were alive today, he'd take two armoured calvalry divisions into Hollywood and knock all those liberal pinheads into the Pacific! So as you can see, I'm a very confused man. And when I get confused, I watch TV. Television is never confusing. It's all so simple somehow.

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