"The Parade Passes By"

I was about to sit down for my usual off-line session with the Sunday Dead-Tree Tribune when I realized I hadn’t finished reading last Sunday’s, so I pick up my least favorite part of the weekly reader – the Parade magazine – and see: Jessica Alba “I Wish I Was Invisible”.

Jess, darling, rule number one: DON’T DO SUPERHERO MOVIES. OK? The casting people will just get another Action Movie Babe Named Jessica (I believe Ms. Biel is next in line) and you’ll be OK. Sheesh. What would these people do without my help? Okay, so I decide to look at the new Parade first to get it over with: “Actress activist and mother Angelina Jolie – How I Found My Way.” Uh, just ask the paparazzi, they know where they’re going. But inside, there is another in the undistinguished series “Bill O’Reilly’s Pop Culture Quiz”… The Presidential Edition!

Now who knows more about Pop Culture than a man dedicated to an unending war against it? Okay, for those of you who don’t want to look more stupid than Bill O’Reilly (which honestly, would take quite an effort), here are some crib notes for the quiz (using mostly actual incorrect answers from the quiz):

1) Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” included the name of a genuine rock superstar. It was NOT A) Fabian.
2) Reportedly, Marilyn Monroe had a crush on President John Kennedy [EUPHEMISM OF THE DECADE!], who greatly enjoyed a movie she made with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. It was NOT D) Old Yeller.
3) Jimmy Carter DID NOT confess to Playboy magazine that he… damn it, every answer to this one is a cheap shot against Carter… classy move, Bill-O. Let’s just say E) Built houses for O’Reilly’s underpaid staff.
4) During the 1992 Presidential election, Bill Clinton DID NOT play the saxophone for which late-night TV host? Actually, Bill, he did it during the 1992 Presidential Campaign. During the Election he voted for himself then sat around in front of a television with his wife, a few advisors and news crews for all the major media outlets NOT including Fox News which didn’t exist yet. Didn’t expect you to worry about that small detail, but it was cute that one of the quiz choices was D) Pat Sajak.
5) The movie and TV program M*A*S*H took place during which President’s administration? Definately not C) William Taft, but another cute answer.
6) Ronald Reagan once starred in a movie with a chimp whose name was NOT D) Harpo. But it would’ve been dream casting.
7) Who created the unforgettable impersonation of Gerald Ford on Saturday Night Live? What? No choice for Al Franken?!? Laugh-In was a huge TV hit starring Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. (You see, Bill has to explain that because his audience was too old for that show in 1968) Which President appeared on the show and said “Sock it to me?” Another inaccurate question, since Richard Nixon was not President YET when he was on the show. It was during the campaign, like Clinton’s sax solo. Or is it that now, with Fox News, the campaigns don’t really matter anymore? They’re just going to declare Fred Thompson the winner and go back to the Missing White Girl Watch?
9) President Dwight D. Eisenhower had one recreational passion outside of Mamie. Another inaccuracy, although his relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby was during WWII and well before he was president. But again, cute points for D) Gangsta Rap.
10) The elder President Bush (of all the awkward ways to describe him, the awkwardest) attended Yale where he posed for a very famous picture (that I had never heard of until today) with… this one is actually challenging because Bush is in his Yale baseball uniform and the skinny, wobbly guy in the suit handing him a copy of his autobiography almost could have been A) Lou Gehrig because it sure didn’t look like who it really was: D) Babe Ruth (in his last public appearance before dying of cancer). I knew O’Reilly couldn’t have come up with ten questions without totally creeping me out at least once.

Okay, back to the good parts of my local Sunday paper. Like a story about a local kid who collected autographs from the famous visitors to Hearst Castle in the 1930′s. Now THAT is Pop Culture.