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Owen Franken / Corbis
The soon-to-be senator’s longtime comedy partner spills on what happened backstage at Saturday Night Live—and why he’s only now breaking his silence.
Al Franken is a senator who will quickly make Minnesotans proud they had the wisdom to choose him, even if by 225 votes. He was my partner in the comedy team of Franken & Davis from 1968 to 1989, when we broke up in dramatic fashion. For a decade we did not really speak except at Saturday Night Live reunions and funerals, but in the last several years, our friendship has rekindled.
Several years ago, I decided to write a memoir. We all know I can write television comedy sketches, but a real writer writes books. Twenty years of Al Franken figured in big in my life—beside family, friends, Saturday Night Live, and Grateful Dead. He was in all of them. There is nothing about Al in 39 Years of Short-Term Memory Loss that is not already a matter of public record. However, retelling old stories about Al could have been useful to his detractors. It may have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done to wait a year for Al to win before publishing. Otherwise I’d be on tour with Reverend Wright. Couldn’t you just see the two of us in an airport bar on our way to Rush Limbaugh or Bob Jones University? The conservative talk shows would be hailing me as the man who held Al Franken back for 20 years.
Supposedly, when Al’s mother, Phoebe, gave birth to him, he came out jaundiced, pointy-headed, and cross-eyed. The doctor said, “Now that’s a baby!”
But now that he’s finally won back Paul Wellstone’s seat, I feel that I can finally express my own political opinions without embarrassing Al. I am very much to the left of Al Franken. For example, I believe there should be hands-on sex education in our high schools as well as Responsible Drinking classes, and safe, legal abortions should be provided by the state up until the age of six. I say, if it’s not working out, a responsible parent should be able to say to their child, “All right—I told you to pick up your room—get in the car!”
However, in my memoir there is nothing about my political opinions, but much about my hippie lifestyle, which should be controversial and open myself up to the judgment of readers. Some will find me likeable and others will find me wanting, thus leading them to question Al’s judgment to tolerate my behavior through the heady ’70s, and the even headier ’80s. I am grateful that in his foreword to my book, Al says, “My prototypical memory [of SNL] is of me and Tom rolling on the floor from something one of us or Danny [Aykroyd] or Jim Downey said or any number of the hilarious people we worked with.”
So here is some collected Franken Lore that will not be public knowledge until March:
Al and I met in 1967. He was in the class above me in an exclusive, all-male, prep school in suburban Minneapolis. He was one of those faces I passed in the hallways each day, but what a face—buckteeth, Coke-bottle glasses, and that mouth. On demand, he would demonstrate by slowly and dramatically opening his maw to its fullest extent, then inserting his pudgy fist completely inside. He had a cherubic build, but, incredibly, his body was literally denser than anyone’s I’ve ever seen. He could lie on the bottom of the deep end of the pool, his head supported by one bent elbow. He could sink like a stone.
He was one of those Jewish guys who dominated scholastics—perfect SATs and such. Franken was equally competitive on the athletic field. He was a good wrestler, and, as a soccer player, his lack of finesse got him the position of “enforcer.” And when he broke his wrist, the plaster cast made him even more effective, earning him the title of “The Claw.”
Supposedly, when Al’s mother, Phoebe, gave birth to him, he came out jaundiced, pointy-headed, and cross-eyed. The doctor said, “Now that’s a baby!”
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
Gerald Posner is the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism (www.posner.com). Posner lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Renata Espinosa is the New York editor of Fashion Wire Daily. She is also the co-founder of impressionistic fashion and art blog TheNuNu and a sometimes backup dancer for "The Anna Copa Cabanna Show."
Amanda Fortini has written for The New Yorker, Slate, Elle, and New York, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.
by Tom Davis
Tom Davis is a four-time Emmy winner for his writing for Saturday Night Live. He wrote for the show for fourteen years, including the first five seasons with the original cast. He and Al Franken were comedy partners in the team Franken & Davis for more than twenty years. His memoir, 39 Years of Short-Term Memory Loss will be published by Grove Atlantic in March.
Detractors? Noooooooooo. What is this world coming to? De ... Tractors preventing the publishing of a book of memoirs?
Nice 'fro. Is that what inspired Beyonce's 'fro in 'Goldmember'?
"So here is some collected Franken Lore that will not be public knowledge until March:"
Tina Brown, Tom Davis just dissed you. Apparently The Daily Beast doesn't count as 'public'.
OTOH, it sounds rather exclusive if it's actually like a private club ...
Anyhoo, loved the Franken stories here, and will look foward to the book in March.
A bit desperate to attract readers are we? From the headline you'd expect stories of all sorts of perverse/illegal/anti-american things going on backstage, and what's in the article: basically what gets said about people at a typical wedding toast: he was precocious, smart, look at his glasses, etc etc. How is this news-worthy at all?
I look forward to the book. . .I have a copy of the original SNL book from the 70s, complete with autographs from Frank and Davis, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray. It is my most prized possession.
It's a comedy piece.
Will Franken bring levity to the Senate? God, I hope so. Even a quick Jagger impression would be welcome.
IfI lived in Minnesota I would have voted for Al Franken for all the times he made me laugh so damn hard I cried. I can still see him & Tom Davis on SNL doing a skit that ended, many times, with Al saying in his best cheesy tv announcer voice, " . . .and me, AL FRANKEN". You had to be there, I guess.
Imagine that. A friend with no desire to betray for money. Says something about good mental health.
Maybe 2009 is The Year of Al Franken!!
And here I thought Franken & Davis were lovers. Silly me... just because they announced it on national TV.
this was nice reminiscent between to friends !!!!!!!!!!
I loved those Franken and Davis sketches, especially the one that was a satire of a beauty pageant. Al Franken was a contestant and he paraded around in a bikini-like thing, looking so ridiculous; the sketch used humor very effectively and made its point, as I recall. Franken and Davis wrote some of the more pointed or political material in those days.
Speaking as a pretty well-informed Minnesotan, I resent all the talk from partisan sources outside the state who are trying to paint Franken as a lightweight, a buffoon, or worse. Don't believe it! Those who have paid attention know how intelligent, intellectually curious and well-informed he is.
That was a fun read, well written, and such a good reminder that none of us should take ourselves too seriously, life is just too short!
that "joke" about the caddy is the oldest golf joke in the world.
Al Franken is one of the few reasons I regret no longer voting in Minnesota. I'm afraid people don't understand that comics, particularly politically-oriented ones, tend to be SMARTER than the average Joe...with the vast exception, of course, of Larry the Cable Guy.
My husband knew Al Franken in college, and he tells a story about receiving a phone call at 3 AM from Al, who was apparently having a self-confidence crisis; Al asked my husband if he, Al, was funny. My husband's response was, "Not at 3 in the morning." This was great dinner table chat for many years, until just about a month ago. My husband was at his parents' house just north of NYC when who should come on the answering machine but Al Franken. After identifying himself, and inviting potential donors to his cause to a dinner with Bill Clinton, Al asked if the person he was calling (my husband's mother) was related to my husband. At this point, my husband picked up the phone and he and Al had a lovely chat about children, crises of confidence, and raising millions of dollars for the lawyers who would be battling in court about the outcome of the election in Minnesota. Full circle.,
I just think its about time we got a professional comedian in the Senate. Maybe Al can straighten those amateurs out. I am a big fan not only of Franken's wit but his politics. It's great to have somebody who can eviscerate the shallow intellects and non-sequitor arguments of the Limbaugh-Hannity-OReilly crowd.
Thank you.
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