David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Stephen Colbert steals my shtick
When Your Mayor was in college, I worked at the college radio station and did the morning show with a friend of mine. We were like the thinking-person’s version of a “Morning Zoo” – just as goofy shtick, but at least we dispensed with the stupid sound effects (and, being a college station, played music that was actually good).
It was an election year, so one of our routines had me running for President. I don’t remember too much about the particulars, except that a running gag had me the victim of a number of assassination attempts (oh, so – well, there were some gun sound effects, but no bells or whistles or things that go whir-whir-whirrrr!), including one by my running mate. If memory serves, I survived them all.
It wasn’t until Election Day itself that we “discovered” that the 12th Amendment set the minimum age to be eligible for the Presidency at 35. This allowed me to bow out gracefully without having to concede defeat, though I have it on good authority I had one write-in vote in the state of Illinois.
Now, Stephen Colbert is stealing my shtick – just as my friend and I were stealing Pat Paulsen’s shtick – by announcing his own candidacy for President.
Colbert, while on a media tour hawking his new book, parodied the transparent coyness of candidates on the precipice of announcing.
When New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd hit upon the brilliant idea of handing her Sunday inches over to Colbert, therefore giving herself the day off, he declared, "I am not ready to announce yet — even though it's clear that the voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative."
While I congratulate Mr. Colbert on his burgeoning campaign being able to make more noise than my more modest effort ever did, I’d like to point out that at least I did not base mine upon a sh!tty movie.
And to those who might point to the notion that I, Alberto Gonzales-like, cannot recall many particulars of my campaign for the Presidency and proclaim that this suggests I must have spent my days in university in some sort of chemical fog, let me point out that I do remember many other salient facts. Such as: My friend and I wrote most of our comic material for the radio show during a class on the American Novel that we took together (mainly because said course was so friggin’ boring: The professor once read the opening sentence of Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms,” then portentously intoned, “Clearly, a beginning of things…”)
One radio bit had me expounding at ponderous length (imitating the pretentious intonations of said professor) on the old Ernie Bushmiller comic strip “Nancy.” Even then, I had a talent for deconstructing subtext even when there was none, which probably explains why I’ve become such a celebrated TV Critic.