Harry Shearer’s Le Show: Sonic Portal to News, Satire, Memory, History

¹ "Tribute to Ruth Gribin," Le Show, July 21, 2019, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-047a6add495?start=0&end=122.21.

² Kenneth Plume, "Interview with Harry Shearer (Part 2 of 4)", February 10, 2000, https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/02/10/interview-with-harry-shearer-part-2-of-4.

³ Shearer's debut as writer and cast member on SNL was in Season 5, 1979-1980. His second stint was in Season 10, 1984-1985.

⁴ Voice of America was 2 hours; Hour of Power was 60 minutes; Le Show is 59 minutes.

⁵ Rick Kogan, "Shearer Not Afraid to Take Political Pot Shots," Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1988, G2.

⁶ Personal correspondence, November 7, 2019. "I don't have a real process I use. I distill the material out of my dread over what I'll be doing next for the show." Harry Shearer, quoted in Lawrence Christon, “Shearer’s Campaign for Truth in Satirizing, Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1987, L84.

⁷ Jack Shafer, "Who Said It First?" Slate, August 30, 2010, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/08/on-the-trail-of-the-question-who-first-said-or-wrote-that-journalism-is-the-first-rough-draft-of-history.html.

⁸ Kevin Howley, "Satirical News as Alternative Journalism," in Alternative Media Meets Mainstream Politics: Activist Nation Rising, ed. Joshua D. Atkinson and Linda Jean Kenix (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019).

¹⁰ Asked by Marc Maron whether his "parents were running from Hitler," Shearer replied, "They weren't running toward him." See WTF with Marc Maron, "Harry Shearer," episode 578, podcast, February 19, 2015, https://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_578_-_harry_shearer.

¹⁰ Personal correspondence, November 6, 2019.

¹¹ "The edge of America, the home of the homeless" is how Shearer often described his location in Santa Monica.

¹² Shearer marked Le Show’s 1989 debut on Chicago AM superstation WGN in classic fashion: "It's been a long time, ladies and gentlemen, I have to be honest with you, since I've been nervous before a radio program – maybe the Jack Benny show in 1955, I don't know. I didn't keep track then. But I did have just a slight twinge driving to the Le Show-atorium today because we've been announcing – we? me – I've been announcing a lot of additional stations to the ever-growing but until this week still tiny Le Show network. But this week I think I can't say that anymore 'cause we've just added our first 50,000-watt AM radio affiliate, WGN in Chicago. Colonel McCormick is spinning in his grave right about now, I would say…. But it’s such a thrill to be on the same, for the first time, to be on the same radio station as Paul Harvey. It’s true." https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-81faa682ed3?proxy_start_time=680.743121.

¹³ Kathy Fuller-Seeley, "The Jack Benny Program," Library of Congress, National Recording Preservation Board, https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/JackBennyProgram.pdf.

¹⁴ Harry Shearer to Marc Maron, in Maron, "Harry Shearer."

¹⁵ Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922-1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley, Jack Benny and The Golden Age of American Radio Comedy (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017).

¹⁶ ''Private Secretary'' – "The Little Caesar of Bleeker Street," CBS, April 1956, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/PrivateSecretary-LittleCaesarofBleekerStreet1956.

¹⁷ "Behind Closed Doors with Harry Shearer," moderated by Peter Morris, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Los Angeles, July 25, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC_2tl7XhhQ. On the difficulty of introducing Harry Shearer, see Mark Hamrick's introduction of Shearer at Shearer's March 14, 2011, National Press Club Luncheon appearance, starting at 00:03:22, https://www.press.org/newsroom/video/npc-luncheon-harry-shearer.

¹⁸ Shearer interned at Young & Rubicam, where one of the clients was Piels Beer. Shearer thus was able to write for two of his comedy icons, Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, who performed as “Bob and Ray” and who voiced animated Piel's commercials, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHroxyoCwV4.

¹⁹ Harry Shearer to Peter Hartlaub, Twitter, March 13, 2017. For context, see https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-grateful-dead-did-get-it-reporters-and-cops-188402/; see also https://relix.com/articles/detail/harry_shearer_and_judith_owen_on_new_orleans_the_knights_of_soft_rock_and_the_grateful_dead/.

²⁰ Plume, "Interview with Harry Shearer."

²¹ NPR began syndication of Le Show in 1987.

²² Harry Shearer, Special Message Regarding Le Show, https://harryshearer.com/a-special-message-regarding-le-show/; also Le Show, April 21 2013, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-ea6c955df75?start=0&end=247.72.

²³ Maron, "Harry Shearer"; "'Simpsons' Icon Harry Shearer: 'WWL Looks Good for 100 Years Old!' The Scoot Show, WWL-AM, March 29, 2022, https://www.audacy.com/podcasts/the-scoot-show-with-scoot-20315/simpsons-icon-harry-shearer-wwl-looks-good-for-100-years-old-1332847667.

²⁴ Janet Maslin, "Screen: Albert Brooks Turns 'Real Life' into Movie: Family Is the Lens," New York Times, March 2, 1979.

²⁵ All in all, it seems he'd rather be Derek Smalls. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXk_3-f3Xjk.

²⁶ As opposed to his "adult film acting work," of which Derek Smalls might be very proud: https://harryshearer.com/media/#prettyPhoto[Videos]/22/.

²⁷ "Harry Shearer (The Simpsons) - Live at the Edge," YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pElAVXioJws at 00:00:40.

²⁸ "'I speak Simpson': Interview with Harry Shearer," The Jewish Chronicle, October 10, 2008, p. 22.

²⁹ Engineering experts from Louisiana State University and the University of California, Berkeley, led investigations analyzing the Army Corps' civil engineering around New Orleans and the greater Gulf Coast leading up to Hurricane Katrina. An Army Corps whistleblower also provided information for the documentary. "I went to the people who led these investigations. I went to a whistleblower who is inside the Corps of Engineers. I went to people who spent years and years looking at this stuff, and they are the people who tell this story." Harry Shearer, interviewed by Neal Conan, "Filmmaker Says Katrina No Natural Disaster," Talk of the Nation, NPR, August 26, 2010, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129451954.

³⁰ Shearer starred on London's West End with Maureen Lipman and the playwright Oliver Cotton in Daytona, a Holocaust memory play, in 2014. See https://theartsshelf.com/a-z/a-z/review-archive/daytona-cast-interviews-harry-shearer-maureen-lipman/; https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/jun/29/harry-shearer-interview-daytona-maureen-lipman-simpsons; https://playbill.com/article/oliver-cottons-daytona-to-transfer-to-west-end-with-maureen-lipman-harry-shearer-and-playwright-cotton-com-218532. Shearer has also written and directed several productions for LA Theatre Works.

³¹ In addition to voluminous newspaper and magazine columns, Shearer has published two books, It's the Stupidity, Stupid: Why (Some) People Hate Clinton and Why the Rest of Us Have to Watch (New York: Ballentine Pub. Group, 1999) and the novel Not Enough Indians (Boston: Justin, Charles, 2006), and his newspaper columns have been collected and published in two volumes, Man Bites Town (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993) and O.J. by the Sea (orig. 1996, Kindle, 2016).

³² The Scoot Show WWL-AM 29 March 2022; Maron, "Harry Shearer" at https://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_578_-_harry_shearer, 00:21:46.

³³ Le Show interview of Mort Sahl, July 20, 2003, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-c9cc35aa74f.

³⁴ "'Le Show' and Prove: THIS Interview with actor and producer Harry Shearer," THIS, November 21, 2021, https://thisent.com/le-show-and-prove-this-interview-with-actor-and-producer-harry-shearer/.

³⁵ Ethopoeia is a rhetorical art dating back at least to Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle in the Lyceum in 322 B.C.E. According to Richard Lanham, the ancient Greek orator Lysias was the first to fully develop the technique. Richard A. Lanham, Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 71.

³⁶ "Ladies and gentlemen, as much as I was bewitched and besotted by comedy at an early age, I was also fascinated and seduced by journalism. I can remember at age 5, or whenever it was my parents first trusted me with blunt little scissors, cutting out and collecting the mastheads for all the different sections of the two daily papers we subscribed to, the main criterion for which was whichever papers in L.A. were still publishing and weren't the Times. When my moment came to be interviewed on TV by Art Linkletter, I confessed to my habit of making my parents take me to the out of town newsstand in Hollywood whenever possible, and for years our mailbox was filled with dailies from Fergus Falls, Minn., and other far-flung locales." See NPC Luncheon with Harry Shearer, https://www.press.org/newsroom/video/npc-luncheon-harry-shearer. See also Alan Rich, "The News Hole with Harry Shearer," Variety, October 26, 1994, https://variety.com/1994/tv/reviews/the-news-hole-with-harry-shearer-1200438801/. Shearer's short-lived Comedy Central satirical news quiz won a Cable Ace Award after its cancellation. See David Schwartz, Steve Ryan, and Fred Wostbrock, The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows, 3rd ed. (New York, Facts on File, 1999), 305.

³⁷ Lucy Jolin, "The Ridiculous to the Sublime," CAM, issue 96, June 15, 2022, https://magazine.alumni.cam.ac.uk/a-history-of-satire/.

³⁸ Goodman, "Taking Apart Politics"; Plume, "Interview with Harry Shearer."

³⁹ Mathis Chazanov, "Variety Is the Spice of KCRW," Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1985. Shearer said that Joe Frank's voice was "like a fist coming out of the radio." See Steve Marble, "Joe Frank, Who Pushed the Boundaries of Radio Storytelling, Dies at 79," Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2018, https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-joe-frank-20180124-story.html. Shearer appears as an authoritative source on Frank in the 2018 documentary Joe Frank: Somewhere Out There (dir. D. P. Carlson).

⁴⁰ Melba Newsome, "Radio Activist," Los Angeles Magazine, July 1998, 50-54, https://books.google.com/books?id=cF8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&lr&pg=PA50.

⁴¹ Chazanov, "Variety."

⁴² Santa Monica History Museum, https://santamonicahistory.catalogaccess.com/photos/15203.

⁴³ Chazanov, "Variety."

⁴⁴ Dave Walker, "Harry Shearer's 'Le Show' Reaches 30th Birthday," Nola.com, December 4, 2013, https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/movies_tv/article_520b6347-543b-57f3-b383-baf8837c0f5e.html.

⁴⁵ Paul Brownfield, "What's Normal Now," Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2001, F6, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-07-ca-54302-story.html.

⁴⁶ Christon, "Shearer's Campaign."

⁴⁷ Tom Shales, "Ratings Only Passable: The Ghost of 'Saturday Night Live,'" Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1985, 12. See also James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, Live from New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told by the Stars, Writers, and Guests, Newly Updated and Expanded for SNL’s 40th Season (New York: Little Brown, 2014).

⁴⁸ "About Deirdre O'Donoghue," Bent by Nature, KCRW, 2022, https://www.kcrw.com/music/shows/bent-by-nature/show-tabs/about-deirdre-odonoghue. Shearer called O'Donoghue "the godmother" of Le Show when he noted her death on January 28, 2001: https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-ba164cbdfc5?proxy_start_time=227.21.

⁴⁹ MTV 4th Annual New Year's Eve Rock N' Roll Ball Vidcheck (12/31/1984-01/01/1985), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugfGqMpi2bE.

⁵⁰ Harry Shearer, SNAP (Saturday Night Alternative Pop), KCRW, January 2, 1985, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-cf9bfb1e949. Cassette listened to in Shearer's studio, Santa Monica, California, July 20, 2019.

⁵¹ Dennis McDougal, "On the Radio: NPR Mutiny over Lack of Bounty," Los Angeles Times, February 12, 1985, G1.

⁵² Lawrence Christon, "The Comedy Column: Shearer, Baiting the Hand That Feeds Him," August 4, 1985, Los Angeles Times, W76.

⁵³ Julie Rogers, "A Timeline of NPR's First 50 Years," NPR WAMU 88.5, April 28, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/04/28/987733236/a-timeline-of-nprs-first-50-years.

⁵⁴ Shearer's delivery of the phrase "around the world" exemplifies the rhetorical figure of diastole, a lengthening of the second vowel sound in "around" accompanied by an increase in volume to provide listeners with a synesthetic experience of the program circumnavigating the globe. An example comes early in this episode: https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-68cbe190b3d. On diastole see Richard Lanham, Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 182. Shearer's diastole operates in his news announcer and radio promoter voices more generally, as in his habitual sign-off to the "News of the Olympic Movement": "… because it's a movement, and we all need one … every day!" An example is at Le Show, July 29, 1988, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-a19d99d1cc2?start=677.1&end=692.74.

⁵⁵ Repetition of the word "shortwave" seems to have been prompted by Shearer pronouncing "megahertz" and being reminded of longtime Los Angeles Dodgers' announcer Vin Scully's characteristic vowels; Shearer's Scully voices the redundant "shortwave" at 0:56:47.

⁵⁶ Walker, "Harry Shearer's 'Le Show' Reaches 30th Birthday."

⁵⁷ "Shearer to Get Star on Walk of Fame," Entertainment News (UPI), June 19, 2008, https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2008/06/19/Shearer_to_get_star_on_Walk_of_Fame/UPI-26391213913223/.

⁵⁸ Catherine Green, "Le Show Host Harry Shearer Moves On," April 24, 2013, Los Angeles Magazine, https://www.lamag.com/laculture/le-show-host-harry-shearer-moves-on/.

⁵⁹ Catherine Green, "Le Show Host Harry Shearer Moves On."

⁶⁰ "Special Message Regarding Le Show," HarryShearer.com, April 16, 2013, https://harryshearer.com/a-special-message-regarding-le-show/.

⁶¹ Randy Lewis, "Harry Shearer's 'Le Show' Moves to KCSN-FM (88.5)," Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2013, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-harry-shearer-le-show-20130710-story.html.

⁶² Aljean Harmetz, "Man of a Thousand Voices, Speaking Literally," New York Times, November 24, 1988, https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/24/arts/man-of-a-thousand-voices-speaking-literally.html.

⁶³ Shearer ended the July 16, 1989, broadcast of Le Show with a "possibly mawkish" story about Blanc's mentorship at https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-44c73a95c9d?start=3290.35&end=3446.65.

⁶⁴ "Tribute to Paul Harvey," Le Show, March 1, 2009, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-596ab0d89b8.

⁶⁵ "Tribute to Stanley Kutler & Stan Freberg," Le Show, April 12, 2015, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-5d1a9bcd9a3.

⁶⁶ Twitter, @theharryshearer 4:27 AM · Dec 31, 2018; Le Show, April 10, 2002, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-283bf7df223?start=1819.58&end=1921.15.

⁶⁷ "Death of Bob Elliott," Le Show, February 7, 2016, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-f66d58ad8f1?start=1146.48&end=1501.23; "It breaks my heart to say RIP Bob Elliott. Nobody taught me more about humor than Bob & Ray.... My deepest condolences to Chris & siblings...." @theharryshearer, 5:17 PM · February 3, 2016.

⁶⁸ Le Show, March 31, 2002, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-5e1bbbb3c3e?start=5652.26&end=7365.

⁶⁹ Le Show, May 4, 2008, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-e9e8b139835?start=688.94&end=3543.

⁷⁰ Harry Shearer Le Show interview of Mort Sahl, July 20, 2003, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-c9cc35aa74f.

⁷¹ Aila Slisco, "Harry Shearer, Albert Brooks Mourn Legendary Stand Up Comedian Mort Sahl," Newsweek October 26, 2021, https://www.newsweek.com/harry-shearer-albert-brooks-mourn-legendary-stand-comedian-mort-sahl-1642908.

⁷² Fred Goodman, "Television/Radio; Taking Apart Politics (While Playing All the Parts)," New York Times, January 12, 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/arts/television-radio-taking-apart-politics-while-playing-all-the-parts.html.

⁷³ Le Show, January 6, 1991, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-5517c96f1cb?start=1118.75&end=1187.93.

⁷⁴ In the same episode Shearer sets up and then performs a sketch featuring a just-post-CBS Dan Rather on Larry King Live.

⁷⁵ Drawing on the work of Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Allison Perlman explains the vital role of radio history as a complement to official or fabulous histories: "[S]ilences and absences enter into the production of history at four moments: fact creation, or the making of sources; fact assembly, or the making of archives; fact retrieval, or the making of narratives; and retrospective significance, or the making of history itself…." Learning about radio history "can help puncture the uninterrogated fables that inform works of 20th century US history." Allison Perlman, "Radio Silence: The Radio Preservation Task Force and the Uses of Radio History," New Review of Film and Television Studies 16, no. 4 (2018), 434-40, https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2018.1524966.

⁷⁶ "Dueling dramatizations from radio’s premiere venue of bifurcated possibilities: Alternative Scenario Playhouse." Shearer reads a news report lead-in to the Alternative Scenario Playhouse at Le Show, March 21, 2004, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-c8461cfef5f?start=3052.56&end=3456.85.

⁷⁷ White House Historical Association, "Richard M. Nixon," https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/richard-m-nixon/.

⁷⁸ HarryShearer.com, "Tricky Dick in His Own Words: Harry Shearer on 'Nixon's the One,'" https://harryshearer.com/projects/nixons-the-one/.

⁷⁹ Maron, "Harry Shearer," https://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_578_-_harry_shearer at 00:21:46.

⁸⁰ "All This Power: The Making of 'Nixon’s The One' with Harry Shearer," https://vimeo.com/114436275. See also Andrew Collins, "Harry Shearer: 'Richard Nixon Wanted My Ass in Vietnam,'" The Guardian, January 29, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jan/29/harry-shearer-richard-nixon-vietnam-spinal-tap-simpsons.

⁸¹ "Hellcats of the Navy, U.S.A., 1957," Monthly Film Bulletin January 1, 1957, 127.

⁸² As the Los Angeles Times explained in Holmes Tuttle's obit, "A wealthy automobile dealer, Tuttle had been one of Reagan's closest friends and advisers since they met in 1946, when Tuttle sold Reagan a Ford coupe. Tuttle had been the dominant force in Reagan's 'kitchen cabinet' — the group of 10 or so wealthy financial backers whose advice Reagan respected and often followed — in Sacramento and later in Washington." "Holmes Tuttle, a Force in Reagan Political Rise, Dies," Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1989, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-06-17-mn-1588-story.html.

⁸³ Rick Kogan, "Shearer Not Afraid to Take Political Pot Shots," Chicago Tribune July 29, 1988, G2.

⁸⁴ Lloyd Grove, "Mr. Reagan's Neighborhood," Washington Post, April 15, 1987, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/04/15/mr-reagans-neighborhood/ed817b5d-b514-45f3-a394-af66afd89590/; Natalie Stone, "Ronald and Nancy Reagan's Former Bel-Air Home Sells for $15M," Hollywood Reporter, July 12, 2016, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/ronald-nancy-reagans-bel-air-910243/.

⁸⁵ David Johnston, "Judge Won’t Order Reagan Testimony," New York Times, April 1, 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/01/us/judge-won-t-order-reagan-testimony.html. For more on Iran-Contra, see Bryan Craig, "The Iran-Contra Affair: The Reagan Administration's Covert Arms-for-Hostages Deal Sparked an Independent Counsel Probe," The Miller Center, July 12, 2017, https://millercenter.org/issues-policy/foreign-policy/iran-contra-affair.

⁸⁶ Lawrence E. Walsh, "Final Report of the Independent Counsel on Iran/Contra Matters," August 4, 1993, https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/.

⁸⁷ Helen Dewar, "Senate Kills Tower's Nomination as Defense Chief, 53-47," Washington Post, March 10, 1989, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/03/10/senate-kills-towers-nomination-as-defense-chief-53-47/5e0b1518-4ee7-499e-85b8-b2f9fcb4989a/.

⁸⁸ Robert Pear, "Bush’s Lawyer Say Aides May Destroy Records," New York Times, November 21, 1992, https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/21/us/bush-s-lawyer-says-aides-may-destroy-records.html.

⁸⁹ Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, "William J. Clinton Event Timeline," American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/william-j-clinton-event-timeline.

⁹⁰ Russell Riley, "The Clinton Impeachment and Its Fallout," Miller Center, University of Virginia, n.d., https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/impeachment/clinton-impeachment-and-its-fallout.

⁹¹ The theme song for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign was Fleetwood Mac's "Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)" https://www.pbs.org/video/dont-stop-iponiu/.

⁹² The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Official Government Edition, July 2004, 198, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-911REPORT/pdf/GPO-911REPORT.pdf.

⁹³ Charles Babington, "Cheney Leaves His Bunker for a Little Fundraising," Washington Post, December 16, 2001, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/12/16/cheney-leaves-his-bunker-for-a-little-fundraising/14010701-7623-4a4f-bf47-0f40cebc6567/; Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung, "In Memoir, Cheney Defends Decisions, Bush as President," Washington Post, August 25, 2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2011/08/25/gIQA4i6zeJ_story.html.

⁹⁴ Anne E. Kornblut, "Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in Mishap on a Texas Ranch," New York Times, February 13, 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/politics/cheney-shoots-fellow-hunter-in-mishap-on-a-texas-ranch.html.

⁹⁵ Howard Kurtz, "Brit Hume, Cheney's Choice for a Straight Shooter," Washington Post, February 16, 2006, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/02/16/brit-hume-cheneys-choice-for-a-straight-shooter/e65c4728-47a6-4f7d-ab4f-c3b89d64afdb/. For more on Cheney see Joan Didion, "Cheney: The Fatal Touch," The New York Review of Books, October 5, 2006.

⁹⁶ "Father Knows Best – Full Cast & Crew," TV Guide, https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/father-knows-best/cast/1000032695/.

⁹⁷ Bernard Weinraub, "Robert Young of 'Father Knows Best' Dies at 91," New York Times, July 23, 1998, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/23/arts/robert-young-of-father-knows-best-dies-at-91.html.

⁹⁸ Robert Berkvist, "Jane Wyatt, Mother on 'Father Knows Best,' Dies at 96," New York Times, October 23, 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/arts/23wyatt.html.

⁹⁹ David Alexander, "Obama Revives Controversial Guantanamo Tribunals," Reuters, May 15, 2009, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-guantanamo/obama-revives-controversial-guantanamo-tribunals-idUSTRE54E4S820090515. See also Connie Bruck, "Why Obama Has Failed To Close Guantanamo," New Yorker, July 25, 2016, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-failed-to-close-guantanamo.

¹⁰⁰ Jeff Mason, "In Shift, Obama Accepts Corporate Funding for Inauguration," Reuters, December 9, 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-inauguration/in-shift-obama-accepts-corporate-funding-for-inauguration-idUSBRE8B80HX20121209.

¹⁰¹ Charlie Savage, Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, and Hanrik Moltke, "Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border," New York Times, June 4, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/hunting-for-hackers-nsa-secretly-expands-internet-spying-at-us-border.html.

¹⁰² President Obama can be heard using the term "Boom" at 00:03:19 in a video of his press conference at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rT7IANtSjo.

¹⁰³ Ian Urbina, "Inspector General's Inquiry Faults Regulators," New York Times, May 25, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25mms.html.

¹⁰⁴ Ben Rhodes, "Inside the White House During the Syrian 'Red Line' Crisis," The Atlantic, June 3, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/inside-the-white-house-during-the-syrian-red-line-crisis/561887/.

¹⁰⁵ Dan Clarendon, "'Whose Line Is It Anyway' to End with Season 12 at The CW, Colin Mochrie Says," TV Insider, November 5, 2022, https://www.tvinsider.com/1068544/whose-line-is-it-anyway-ending-season-12-colin-mochrie-tweet-the-cw/.

¹⁰⁶ Jeremy Ashkenas, Hannah Fairfield, Josh Keller, and Paul Volpe, "7 Key Points from the C.I.A. Torture Report," New York Times, December 9, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia-torture-report-key-points.html.

¹⁰⁷ Sheri Fink and James Risen, "Psychologists Open a Window on Brutal C.I.A. Interrogations," New York Times, June 21, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/20/us/cia-torture.html.

¹⁰⁸ "Your Call: What Do You Want to Ask Harry Shearer?" December 15, 2014, KALW.com, https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2014-12-15/your-call-what-do-you-want-to-ask-harry-shearer. Searching the Le Show archive for the recurring "News of Secrets" segment provides updates on the evolving release of information from the CIA Torture Report.

¹⁰⁹ Scott Pelley, "George Tenet: At the Center of the Storm," CBS News: 60 Minutes, April 25, 2007, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-tenet-at-the-center-of-the-storm/.

¹¹⁰ Patricia Brennan, "If Words Don't Translate Maybe the Attitude Will," Washington Post, April 15, 1990, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/tv/1990/04/15/if-words-dont-translate-maybe-the-attitude-will/01ce2690-033b-44d9-9b90-2b524eeb0f58/.

¹¹¹ Shearer compiled eight of his Le Show Trumpsongs, including "Caveat Discipulus," into The Donald Trump Songbook to mark the beginning of the Trump administration's third year.

¹¹² Dan Snierson, "Donald Trump: Harry Shearer Imagines Conversation between President Obama and the President-Elect," Entertainment Weekly, November 23, 2016, https://ew.com/article/2016/11/23/donald-trump-barack-obama-harry-shearer-too-soon/. See also Remington Scott, "Too Soon?" https://vimeo.com/192697005; "Trump Final," https://vimeo.com/192887050; "Obama Final," https://vimeo.com/192886954.

¹¹³ Nancy Benac, "In Trump's 'Apprentice' Run, Reality Wasn't What It Seemed," Associated Press, October 15, 2016, https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-election-2020-campaign-2016-events-1ab9c6b8ebd444bdbcfc3fbf0a424765.

¹¹⁴ Metadata structures fail to capture most of Shearer's impromptu oral compositions, unfortunate because Shearer's spontaneous human speech constitutes a significant part of the rhetorical richness of Le Show. Listening to entire episodes will almost always deliver unanticipated delights.

¹¹⁵ "60 Minutes - Saturday Night Live," Saturday Night Live, Season 10, initial air date November 17, 1984, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_5jZ3DbwoM.

¹¹⁶ Dan Rather on a roof in Seattle, in "Dan Rather – Harry Shearer: Politics," My Damn Channel, posted October 2, 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rA0_WdpNUU.

¹¹⁷ Andrew Adam Newman, "Talking Heads Caught in Moments of Silence," New York Times, December 30, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/arts/design/31shea.html.

¹¹⁸ Bill Mitchell, "The Colorful Origins of USA Today," Poynter Online, December 17, 2002. https://www.poynter.org/archive/2002/the-colorful-origins-of-usa-today/.

¹¹⁹ "Before his own problems became public, Mr. Limbaugh had decried drug use and abuse and had mocked President Bill Clinton for saying he had not inhaled when he tried marijuana. He often made the case that drug crimes deserve punishment. 'Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country,' Mr. Limbaugh said on his short-lived television program on October 5, 1995. 'And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs.' He added, 'And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.'" See "Rush Limbaugh Arrested on Prescription Drug Charges" New York Times, April 28, 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/us/rush-limbaugh-arrested-on-prescription-drug-charges.html.

¹²⁰ Allana Akhtar, "Brits Are Calling Out the 'Dystopian' and 'Post-Apocalyptic' American Pharma Ads That Aired during Oprah's Interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry," Business Insider, March 8, 2021, https://www.businessinsider.com/brits-call-american-pharmaceutical-ads-post-apocalyptic-2021-3.

¹²¹ Gardiner Harris, "Pfizer Pays $2.3 Billion to Settle Marketing Case," New York Times, September 2, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/business/03health.html.

¹²² "Merger Record in '88 Is Seen," New York Times, November 21, 1988, https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/21/business/merger-record-in-88-is-seen.html.

¹²³ Howard Kurtz, "Bush Angrily Denounces Report of Extramarital Affair as 'A Lie,'" Washington Post, August 12, 1992, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/08/12/bush-angrily-denounces-report-of-extramarital-affair-as-a-lie/431e91c8-ff23-4afd-843c-b083f297fff4/.

¹²⁴ James Sterngold, "Balomon to Join Shearson in Nabisco Battle," New York Times, October 28, 1988, https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/28/business/salomon-to-join-shearson-in-nabisco-battle.html.

¹²⁵ JJ Sutherland, "Karzai Brother Being Investigated for Corruption," The Two-Way, NPR, September 27, 2010, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/09/27/130152430/karzai-brother-being-investigated-for-corruption.

¹²⁶ David Dzikowski, "The Ironic Voice and Subjunctive Mood of Public Radio Programming" (Ph.D. diss., Pennsylvania State University, 2009), 13.

¹²⁷ NPR, "Tom and Ray Magliozzi: Hosts, Car Talk," undated, https://www.npr.org/people/2100834/tom-and-ray-magliozzi.

¹²⁸ NPR, "Tom and Ray Magliozzi."

¹²⁹ "Afghan President Karzai's Brother Targeted in U.S. Investigation," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 27, 2010, https://www.rferl.org/a/Afghan_President_Karzai_Brother_Targeted_In_US_Investigation/2169230.html.

¹³⁰ "The London native gave viewers a glimpse of those with 'champagne wishes and caviar dreams' with Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, which aired in syndication from 1984-95." See Jackie Strause and Mike Barnes, "Robin Leach, 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' Host Dies at 76," Hollywood Reporter, August 24, 2018, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/robin-leach-dead-lifestyles-rich-famous-host-dies-1137244/.

¹³¹ "National Academy of Sciences Confirms That Formaldehyde Can Cause Cancer in a Finding That Has Implications for Anatomic Pathology and Histology Laboratories," Dark Daily, July 13, 2015, https://www.darkdaily.com/2015/07/13/national-academy-of-sciences-confirms-that-formaldehyde-can-cause-cancer-in-a-finding-that-has-implications-for-anatomic-pathology-and-histology-laboratories-713/.

¹³² Frazier Moore, "Lewis Brought Strange Energy to MDA Telethon," Telegram & Gazette, September 4, 2011, https://www.telegram.com/story/news/local/north/2011/09/04/lewis-brought-strange-energy-to/49913954007/.

¹³³ Harry Shearer, "Telethon," Film Comment 15, issue 3 (May/June 1979), 33-48. See also https://harryshearer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Telethon.pdf .

¹³⁴ Harry Shearer, "Telethon."

¹³⁵ Roger Friedman, "Jerry's Kids No More: How Jerry Lewis Got Pink Slipped by MDA," Showbiz 411, August 18, 2011, https://www.showbiz411.com/2011/08/18/jerrys-kids-no-more-how-jerry-lewis-got-pink-slipped-by-mda.

¹³⁶ 1989's "Telethon Memories" were proceeded by an example of KCRW's fundraising crisis rhetoric: "… and those of us here are aware of how risky and how fragile life is on the radio here in Southern California. We are 200 telephone calls behind where we were last year, meaning that those of you who listen are not responding. So please, if you listen to KCRW, don't take us for granted. Call us at 450-3524 with your pledge. If we can lose an institution like KFAC, then all of us on the public dial are also an endangered species. If you value National Public Radio news and KCRW, call 450-3524 with your pledge now. 450-3524. Do it before Monday. And thank you" https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-f7356cea25d.

¹³⁷ "The Harry Shearer Alternative Museum of Broadcasting," Spy, September 1989, 92-93.

¹³⁸ Bruce Handy, "Jerry Goes to Death Camp!" Spy, May 1992, 40-46. More recently Shearer was interviewed by his Spy colleague Kurt Anderson about The Day the Clown Cried: "The Return of the World Film Ever Made," Studio 360, January 7, 2016. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/studio/segments/return-of-the-worst-film-ever-made. The Library of Congress in 2015 acquired the film negative of The Day the Clown Cried under condition that it not be shown for "at least 10 years," according to Rob Stone, Moving Image Curator at the Library. Noah Bierman, "Great Read: Silent-Movie Buffs Search the Screen for Clues to Origins of 'Mostly Lost' Films," Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2015, https://www.latimes.com/nation/great-reads/la-na-c1-lost-films-20150805-story.html.

¹³⁹ Shearer tropes into the voice of Principal Skinner from The Simpsons to pronounce the word "conditions." Hearing echoes of other characters in Shearer's narrations between Le Show elements is an additional treasure of the archive.

¹⁴⁰ Shearer postscripts many a Le Show segment, albeit not consistently, as "a copyrighted feature of this broadcast." What can and cannot be copyrighted has been a concern across Shearer's career, most pointedly in his lawsuit against Vivendi. See Eriq Gardner, "Harry Shearer Files $125M 'Spinal Tap' Fraud Suit, Copyright Termination," Hollywood Reporter, October 18, 2016, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/harry-shearer-files-125m-spinal-939205/. When he launched the lawsuit, he also launched the Fairness Rocks website: https://www.fairnessrocks.com/. On Shearer and copyright, see also https://mobile.twitter.com/theharryshearer/status/1046427743817281536.

¹⁴¹ "Bush speaks, boy yawns, Letterman notices, CNN goofs," Tampa Bay Times, April 2, 2004, updated August 27, 2005, https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2004/04/02/bush-speaks-boy-yawns-letterman-notices-cnn-goofs/.

¹⁴² Shearer compiled some of his satires of Simpson in a 2007 CD, O. J. On Trial: The Early Years.

¹⁴³ Shearer covered and wrote a column for Slate magazine approximately twice-weekly during Simpson's four-month civil trial. "I'm a chocaholic, and the Tobler factory just moved into the neighborhood. I'm a wine aficionado, and somebody opened up a cut-price Barolo store at the end of the block. As it happens, I'm both a chocaholic and a wine aficionado, but these are merely analogies for what's actually happened: I'm an O. J. trial junkie, and the civil proceeding, Trial of the Century II, is taking place within walking distance of my house." Harry Shearer, "Dispatches: OJ by the Sea," Slate, September 28, 1996, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1996/09/oj-by-the-sea.html ; https://slate.com/tag/oj-by-the-sea.

¹⁴⁴ "Watching 'The People vs. OJ Simpson'? Now Read My Coverage of the Second Trial, the One That Worked," http://amazon.com/dp/B01D5KJ444?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660,” 8:28 PM, March 22, 2016, Twitter.

¹⁴⁵ Raymond Hernandez, "The Pursuit: A Spectacle Gripping and Bizarre," New York Times, June 18, 1994, https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/18/us/the-simpson-case-the-pursuit-a-spectacle-gripping-and-bizarre.html.

¹⁴⁶ Shearer has himself narrated Peter and the Wolf. Dean M. Shapiro, "Harry Shearer to Narrate 'Peter and the Wolf' at Loyola," Nola.com, June 3, 2015, https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/music/harry-shearer-to-narrate-peter-and-the-wolf-at-loyola/article_ff2af3f2-6420-5492-8a76-9b7855d84d60.html.

¹⁴⁷ Paul Duggan, "Mississippi Keeps Its State Flag," Washington Post, April 18, 2001, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/04/18/mississippi-keeps-its-state-flag/0ad4a97e-946a-4e9b-8f62-bab6e6516424/.

¹⁴⁸ "I've confessed to you many, many's the time when I occupied the Sunday morning slot on this station my insatiable and, from what I know about human life, unreasonable need for mail, incoming mail," Harry Shearer,
SNAP (Saturday Night Alternative Pop), KCRW, January 2, 1985.