Should David Letterman Get Into Politics and Be the Next Al Franken?

[babylonsister]

Should David Letterman Get Into Politics and Be the Next Al Franken?
The former ‘Late Show’ host teams up with Senator Al Franken for a hopeful and hilarious Funny or Die series about climate change.
Matt Wilstein
07.11.17 1:00 AM ET


If former Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken can be a successful member of the United States Senate from Minnesota, then who’s to say David Letterman couldn’t do the same from his home state of Indiana? He may just need to trim that Santa Claus beard first.

This week, the two men teamed up for a new web series co-produced by Funny or Die and Years of Living Dangerously called “Boiling The Frog” that manages to find a kind of dark humor in catastrophic climate change. Filmed entirely in and around Franken’s Senate offices in Washington, D.C., the six-episode series reveals Letterman as a retired comedian who yearns to have some sort of meaningful impact on the world that he will leave behind to his teenage son. But like Franken, he is nearly incapable of not being funny at all times.

Together, they make the type of rivalrous comedy team who try one-upping each other’s dryly subtle humor at every turn. When Franken shows Letterman his framed montage of “No Joke” headlines his initial Senate run, Letterman counters by predicting his obituary lede: “Stupid human trick.”

snip//

“We know there’s something wrong, but what I’m tired of is people, daily, nightly, on all the cable news shows telling us there’s something wrong. I just think we ought to direct our resources and our energies to doing something about it,” Letterman told the Associated Press in a recent interview. “I know there’s trouble in this country and we need a guy who can fix that trouble,” he added. “I wish it was Trump, but it’s not, so let’s just stop whining about what a goon he is and figure out a way to take him aside and put him in a home.”

So far, at least, he has not put himself forward as “the guy who can fix that trouble,” but he does see in Franken a model for moving away from comedy and toward activism, while keeping his sense of humor intact.
Boiling The Frog Ep 4: Don't Drink The Water from Senator Al Franken

“I have such great admiration for you, you have had such a wonderfully successful career in a diametrically opposite field,” Letterman tells Franken later in the series. “Although helping people through comedy and entertainment is certainly valuable.”

snip//

After telling Franken that he “loves” him, Letterman says, “I am constantly looking for a version of your life where what I do beyond is truly meaningful.” He expanded on this point in his conversation with the Associated Press, saying he finds it “deeply, deeply frustrating” that he is not able to help change the things that plague this country and the world.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/should-david-letterman-get-into-politics-and-be-the-next-al-franken

[AJT]

1. He 70, a bit late to begin a career in politics.

[Chasstev365]

2. Only if he could turn his native Indiana blue!