Five Great Franken Clips

Norm Coleman’s pending legal challenges notwithstanding, it looks like this is actually gonna happen: Al Franken has staged his comeback, an has been declared the victor in the Minnesota Senate race. Now seat him! Hurry, before the Wall Street Journal’s conspiracy-mongering and Dick Morris’s dark mutterings queer the deal! (Because everyone listens to what Dick Morris has to say these days, right?)

Anyway, Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo posted this clip yesterday of Franken, back sometime in what looks like the early Reagan administration, doing a bang-on Mick Jagger impersonation, with his then comedy partner Tom Davis aping Keef Richards.

It’s incredible. But before the looneys on the right pillory soon-to-be-Senator Franken for dancing around and imitating a leotard-clad limey (as if they didn’t have enough to bitch about already), here are four other clips which demonstrate the North Star Stater’s indefatigable patriotism.

* Franken and Davis on Letterman in ’87, in which the pair show off their national pride — Davis proffering his imitation of Franken’s soon-to-be colleague, Senator Daniel Inouye, hawking Macadamia nuts; and Franken (impressively!) drawing a freehand map of the lower 48 in less than two minutes.

* The 1980 Grateful Dead Trivia Quiz offers an alternate view of presidential history. (“Q: Who dosed Jack Kennedy? A: TUNE IN TO FIND OUT!”)

* Franken, interviewed by the Bay State’s own Robert Bird — co-star of the must-see 1999 documentary, and soon-to-be MTV series, How’s Your News? — at the 2004 DNC in Boston.

* A Franken-co-penned sketch from the just-past election season. “I’m John McCain, and I approve this message.”

Alas, one sketch I could not find anywhere online is the best one: “Final Days,” Franken and Davis’s classic from SNL’s first season — allegedly written while both were on LSD — in which Richard Nixon (Dan Aykoyd) and Henry Kissinger (John Belushi) experience a long, dark night of the soul in the White House portrait gallery. Here's the transcript.

President Richard Nixon: And you! Franklin Delano Roosenfelt. You were a Jew, too, weren't you? Jewboy! Jewboy! [turns to portrait of Lincoln] What is happening to me, Abe? Everything's falling apart, Why me, Abe? Why me?!

[the lips on Lincoln's portrait move]

Voice of Lincoln: Because you're such a dip.