Yesterday, just days into his new job in the United States Senate, Al Franken finally did what we'd all been waiting for: He cracked a joke. And a pop culture-themed one at that! While questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the former SNL-er asked her about Perry Mason. Earlier in the proceedings, Sotomayor had mentioned how influential the classic television show from the 1950s and '60s had been in her decision to become a lawyer. She'd also made reference to a bit of TV trivia: That Mason only lost a single case to his opposing counsel, prosecutor Hamilton Burger. A fan of Mason himself, Franken asked: "What was the one case in Perry Mason that Burger won?" When Sotomayor couldn't remember, Franken cracked: "Didn't the White House prepare you for that?" It wasn't exactly Stuart Smalley, but how cool was it to see a bit of levity injected into the heavy-duty hearings?
Check out the video below. Can any of you answer Franken's question? In which episode did Mason lose his case?
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I am sad that this fool Senator is from my state…
And how staged was her answer? If it wasn’t, then wow she was able to think of it VERY quickly
Kate – ME TOO!! This is exactly what I figured he’d do – start telling jokes. The man is a joke. Yuck!
I’m sure the folks at Fox News and Anne Coulter will have a lot to say about this.
Kate, you are obviously a massive ret*rd. The whole confirmation process is one massive, old-white-guy posturing and jerk-off session. It was tedious, boring and self-indulgent. AL FRANKEN IS FUNNY, WITTY, AND HAS MORE INTELLIGENCE THAN MOST OF THE A-HOLES AT THAT HEARING PUT TOGETHER. You should have enough sense to be glad you no longer have that parasite Norm Coleman siphoning money away from the state to himself. Duh.
btw, Ardent – you’re an idiot too
Thats OK Kate and Ardont, most of us are sad your state is even a part of the United States!
Hahahahahahaha. Jimmy, you’re right. I was in Minnesota once…NEVER AGAIN. It was soooooo boring and ugly….I wish they would secede.
Sir Clive, you can stay out of Minnesota. We won’t miss you.
You either, Jimmy. Oh, and Kate, if you want to leave with them, that’d be alright – I’d take Franken over Coleman any day of the week.
I’ve been to Minnesota several times and it’s lovely as are the people. You got angry at what other people said and chose to bash the state they live in. That’s a lame attempt at showing your anger guys.
I’m not from Minnesota, but I am ashamed for them. I would have thought he would have had the decency to try to act professional to silence his critics.
Honestly I was just happy to see a glimpse of humor and levity by a Senator. If they laughed once in a while, maybe the country would be a bit better off. And as for Minnesota, I’ve been to 42 of the continental states and each one has its bright spots and boring spots. I would trade the rurality of Minnesota any day for the bum peeing in a corner at Grand Central Station. Be Americans and stop bashing each other.
U-S-A. U-S-A. U-S-A. Like I said, the whole confirmation process is one massive, old-white-guy posturing and jerk-off session. Gawd, these geysers love the sound of their own voice. Your tax dollars at work!
She started to answer before he finished the question. How could that be, I wonder?
To SIRS with love as apparently you were deprived of it as children!!!
To SIRS with love as apparently you both never had it as children or adults…!
Boy the Sir Clive and Basil commentors don’t like white guys! The GOP questioners were far more polite and informed in their questioning than the Dems (including THE ONE) when they questioned Roberts and Alito. A little humor in the process isn’t a bad thing, but Missy’s post is as pointless and unfunny as Franken’s attempt humor. He lost his edge in about 1995.
hcarden: you seem to be implying that Sotomayor was given the questions in some cases before hand. Of Course! Most of them sent her questions in advance. Arlen Spector made a big point of talking about the fact that he had informed her in advance of what he was going to ask.
This may be the one question she didn’t have in advance.
The Hearings were a Joke !! All the posturing on both sides. It was all rehearsed except that the acting was so poor. None of them would make it on SNL except Al Franken.
Since Sotomayor is an Ivy Leaque alumnus I would have hoped her to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr instead of Perry Mason. It could of been worse. She could have said that her inspiration for becoming a Lawyer was from watching reuns of “Alf”.
It is days like this that I am sad to be an american.
Perry Mason never lost a case to Burger. Mason had a client that was guilty, but the client was pretending to be somebody he wasn’t. So he turned his client into Burger, but cleared the name of the person his client was pretending to be. So nobody won! Well, justice of course.
Portland, Oregon’s channel 12 still plays Perry Mason, Mon-Fri at noon. The only market that does so. It is like tradition to watch it daily. The Oregonian had an article on it.
Al Franken, with his effort at levity minimized the importance of the review process for the Supreme Court Justices. If I was Sotomayor I would have been offended, as would any other right thinking nominee. Franken also managed to add fuel to the fire that he is a laughing stock, and that is not the kind of laughing stock that he desires. The state of Minnesota deserves a Senator that acts like a Senator, not a comedian in chief.
Al Franken did just fine and he’ll be a terrific Senator. He’s a breath of fresh air. As for the hearing, all the Senators used levity at some point to diffuse the heaviness of the topics covered.
All Senators use levity at times during these type of hearings to diffuse the heaviness of the many topics covered. Senator Franken did the same and is a breath of fresh air. He’s already a fine Senator.
One word covers, Sonia Sotomayor, Al Franken and/or Stuart Smalley, and whoever decided that popwatch qualifies as a news venue. The word is Idiot.
Sometimes it’s better to just not say anything at all.
As a US Senator, Al Franken makes a great comic!
Typical of Franken.
Joke from a joke.
You left out the part where Franken said that he always waited until the end of the HALF-HOUR to see Perry Mason spring his trap. The only problem is, all Perry Mason episodes were one-hour shows, from the very beginning.
Am I the only person in America who noticed this mistake?
He made several mistakes, not the least of which was the half hour, as he made the assumption that Mason won all his cases and she reminded him of one that he lost! (actually it was three, only one of which was a murder case and it got reversed later, to save the innocent from the gas chamber), but the biggest problem of all was not the assumption that she watched along with her mother and brother, which she corrected him on another mistake, but that he really did not get across his original point about the Internet being dominated by Service Providers and controlling time by delaying users updates as opposed to their own!