Cagle World

My nephews and I were holed up at the TWA Hotel in New York on a rainy Sunday a few weeks ago, waiting to attend an evening wedding. I fiddled with my phone and laptop and scanned the TV, while explaining that this was a big day for my fantasy football teams. (To be honest, every Sunday during the NFL season is big.)

Though the three teens knew a lot about football, I was taken aback when they said that unlike some 45 million Americans they had never learned the fantasy version — which has become a billion-dollar enterprise. So I told them the backstory.

It was a similarly rain-soaked weekend 61 years ago when Bill Winkenbach, an owner of the positively awful Oakland Raiders, flew into the TWA terminal for a Sunday game against the Titans (later the Jets). Depressed over his team’s 0-7 record and lack of promotable stars, he and some friends spent most of the night in a hotel bar, inventing a game that would allow them to roster stars of every team — players like Jim Brown, Mike Ditka and Frank Gifford.

Ten months later the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League (GOPPPL) held its first formal draft at Winkenback’s home. The league remained private until 1969 when one of the originals, Andy Mousalimas, opened the game to patrons at his sports bar, the King’s X.

What followed was explosive popularity that spread across the nation, with the biggest breakthrough coming in 1985 when Grandstand Sports launched the first internet-based fantasy platform. In 2010 the NFL got into the game and today most teams are investors in fantasy operations.

Conflicts are easy to find. This season, Jacksonville’s star running back Travis Etienne had a career game, then posted on social media: “I played against myself in fantasy fb today.”

While most fans like me play for token sums, fantasy football has grown into a high-stakes competition for sharps, who use sophisticated computer programs to set their lineups. DraftKings runs a contest dubbed The Milly-Maker, awarding a $1 million first prize each week of the NFL season.

Meanwhile, at our hotel, the boys and I formed TTWAHL (The TWA Hotel League) for which we each pick a weekly roster. In our first match, Alex scored a remarkable 151 points. Nick had 132, and Jake finished with 126.

As for me, I cautioned the guys that I’m what Yahoo calls a “veteran,” devoting many hours each week to digesting fantasy advice from people like NBC’s Matthew Berry, ESPN’s Field Yates and Al Zeidenfeld, who won a million dollars in 2016 and parlayed it into a touting empire on YouTube and ESPN.

I told them how miserable Bill Winkenback must have felt when the Raiders lost in the Manhattan mud and finished their season 1-13. My nephews were impressed by my knowledge until my score was posted. I got 67 points.

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

Friday nights on CBS, Suzanne Somers always held my hand when we walked on stage. Sitting on stools before the cameras she made certain to cross her left leg in my direction, explaining that it would send a positive subliminal message to viewers about our friendship.

Suzanne, who died Sunday at her home in Palm Springs after recurring bouts with breast cancer, was 100 percent showbiz in the best old-fashioned sense.

As we opened each “Candid Camera” show I made sarcastic cracks about her appearance. (She enjoyed paring sexy glam outfits with schoolgirl pigtails.) I received hundreds of letters from viewers scolding me for treating my partner that way. They had no idea that Suzanne encouraged me to do it, even offering suggestions for my putdowns.

She got her start in the 1973 film “American Graffiti,” never saying a word but drawing attention for a role billed only as “Blonde in T-Bird.” A few years later she landed a part as Chrissy Snow on the hit ABC sitcom “Three’s Company,” a job Suzanne lost after demanding to be paid as much as her male co-stars.

In years that followed she starred as a song and dance headliner in Vegas, in the sitcom “Step by Step,” and in several films. She wrote over two dozen books, 14 of which became bestsellers.

Soon after we met Suzanne sent me a ThighMaster, the exercise gadget that she and her husband Alan Hamel pitched relentlessly, managing to sell over 10 million units. A few months later she called me into her dressing room to test her new product, which she dubbed the FaceMaster. She insisted it would create a more youthful and healthy appearance by sending jolts of electric current through wires pasted to the user’s face.

I declined to try it, privately believing that it seemed less scientific and more like something our prop department might come up with for a TV gag.

In fact, I came to question the health advice she offered in her books and in her many appearances on home-shopping channels. But she practiced what she preached — even embracing alternative and unproved treatments for her breast cancer.

Suzanne genuinely cared about people, especially her many fans. At first she struggled doing “Candid Camera” routines in the field because she couldn’t bring herself to deceive people, even during a brief practical joke.

What I remember most fondly about my friend was her infectious laugh. When our pre-recorded sequences played for the studio audience she would laugh so loudly that our director asked me if he should cut her microphone. Knowing her to be genuine, I said no.

On a show that promoted the word “smile,” Suzanne Somers was a perfect fit.

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” hasn’t cracked a Joe Biden joke since April 15, when cast member Michael Che quipped, “President Biden has tried to downplay the recent leak of classified U.S. documents that were posted on social media, because when you’re over 80 a couple of leaks are nothing to be embarrassed about.”

With strikes by writers and performers in their fifth month, late night TV remains shuttered and with it most political humor. That benefits all politicians, of course, but none more profoundly than President Biden.

One month after the strike began, you’ll recall, Biden tripped over a sandbag on a stage at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and took a spill that could have been comedy gold. It was reminiscent of the fall Gerald Ford had while exiting Air Force One in 1975 — an incident that SNL mined for over a year, making Chevy Chase, who played Ford, a big star, while contributing to Ford’s loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

But with late night TV dark, there were no Biden-as-a-stumbler routines. Dana Carvey, who does a great POTUS impression, was left to perform his Biden bit for a theater audience of about 1,300 in Monterey, California. Falling flat on his face, he assured the crowd in perfect Biden pitch, “Feeling good. Watch me run — cause I know how to run!” (Carvey jumps to his feet and “jogs” while barely moving his feet but furiously pumping his arms.)

Were it not for the strikes, Donald Trump’s four criminal indictments would also be cause for a late night comedy frenzy, similar to Bill Clinton’s impeachment woes. On SNL, Darrell Hammond portrayed Clinton (sounding very much like Trump): “If I didn’t know better, I’d say people like me more when I’m screwing up. I was better off when I was smoking pot in England and grabbing ass in the White House.”

In researching my book “Playing POTUS,” I found that Trump was history’s most lampooned president. Clinton was tied for second place with Ronald Reagan. What distinguished Trump and Reagan, however, is that they seemed to relish the attention. Rich Little, who was Reagan’s friend and mimic, told me Reagan loved jokes at his own expense, even when Little mocked the president’s advanced age and frequent memory lapses.

Trump was a bit more brittle — often slamming Alec Baldwin, who played him on SNL — but it was largely an act. Trump was never damaged by the jokes; indeed, much of the comedy fueled his base, just as recent criminal indictments appear to have done.

While Trump is living confirmation of the adage that all publicity is good publicity, Biden is the opposite. Favoring a low profile, he doesn’t pal around with comedians as Reagan did with Little, George H.W. Bush did with Carvey, and George W. Bush did with a lesser known comic named Steve Bridges. Even Gerald Ford, who suffered from barbs delivered by Chevy Chase, invited Chase to perform with him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and spoke kindly of him after leaving office.

In 2020 the pandemic gave Joe Biden literal shelter from the rigors of campaigning and now, as the 2024 race takes shape, strikes have put the kibosh on jokes that could damage his re-election prospects. The last president to experience such a comedy moratorium was Lyndon Johnson in 1963, following the Kennedy assassination. The nation was numb and comics were temporarily silenced.

Unfortunately for LBJ, when performers like Tom and Dick Smothers finally went back to work they roasted him so brutally for several years — primarily over his Vietnam War policies — that Johnson surprised the nation by withdrawing from the 1968 presidential race.

As with Vietnam, plus civil rights protests in the tumultuous 1960s, the current state of the nation and presidential politics aren’t really laughing matters. Yet, comedians tend to disregard that, unless a strike gets in the way.

At the Correspondents’ Dinner in 2022 Trevor Noah said, “I stood here tonight and I made fun of the president of the United States, and I am going to be fine.” How fine Joe Biden will be in the coming months after comics get back to work is another matter.

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

No matter how you look at it, Babe Ruth swung a big stick.

The bats he used during 22 seasons as baseball’s Sultan of Swat produced 2,873 hits and a remarkable 714 home runs. Each weighed between 42 and 44 ounces (compared to bats favored by today’s sluggers which are about ten ounces lighter).

But the most impressive thing about Babe’s bats are the prices they fetch. The other day one sold at auction for $1.3 million. In the last year, two others have exceeded the million-dollar mark — one setting the record for baseball bats at $1.85 million.

Collectors pay handsomely for all sorts of sports stuff, from trading cards to balls and bats. In 2019 Hunt Auctions arranged the sale of one of Ruth’s jerseys for $5.64 million, the highest sum ever paid for any piece of baseball memorabilia.

My own collection includes several dozen bats signed by former Major Leaguers — though none approaches Ruthian standards. I’ve always believed that a bat, especially a game-used version, is the ideal baseball collectible because it is so intimately linked to the player who owned it. Players select the weight and length along with subtle variations in the taper of the barrel and the shape of the knob.

A Big Leaguer held this wooden treasure and swung it, as I do periodically with each bat in my collection. I also have over 100 signed baseballs, which are nice, but they all look alike and, even if autographed, don’t have the charm of a pro bat.

Ruth’s bats are becoming even more valuable thanks to research by Professional Sports Authenticator, a global leader in evaluating sports memorabilia. PSA’s experts were able to match two of the million-dollar Ruth bats to photographs of him at the plate. The bat setting the record price was identified by using a 1921 photo from the Polo Grounds in New York showing five marks—presumably from impact with a pitched ball.

The bat sold this month was traced to a 1923 exhibition game in which Ruth hit a home run. The report says the bat has “numerous ball marks and ball-stitch impressions on the left barrel, grain swelling from repeated ball contact, and cleat marks. The handle has been scored for an enhanced grip,” which Ruth was known to do to all his bats.

In a sport known for hyperbole, David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions, was probably understating the magical appeal of lumber used by George Herman Ruth Jr. when he said, “This baseball bat is as close to a work of art as the medium can allow.”

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

If TV writers had been on strike during the run up to the 1976 election, it’s possible that Gerald Ford wouldn’t have lost to Jimmy Carter. Ford was a punching bag for NBC’s new “Saturday Night” (later “Saturday Night Live”) beginning with its debut when Chevy Chase coined a campaign slogan for Ford: “If he’s so dumb, how come he’s president?”

That was hardly the worst of it. Three weeks later Chase played Ford in a sketch in which he bumbled, stumbled, and spoke incoherently:

“My fellow Americans, ladies and gentlemen, members of the press, and my immediate family. First, may I thank you all for being here, and I am, and my immediate family. First, may I thank you all for being here, and I am and my immediate family. Thank you all for being here.”

He tries to drink water from an empty pitcher, bangs his head on the podium, falls to the floor twice, and then hurts his hand pounding the podium. He trips over two folding chairs — a reminder to viewers that four months earlier Ford had slipped on rain-soaked steps while exiting Air Force One. It was a seminal moment in political comedy: Chase’s showbiz career took off, while Ford’s political career crashed.

If members of the Writers Guild of America had been on strike, as they are now, Ford’s image might have remained that of a college football star and Yale graduate with a distinguished 25-year career in Congress, who served admirably as vice president and then president when Richard Nixon resigned.

Joe Biden is a lot luckier. When he tripped over a sandbag — carelessly left on a stage at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs where the president was speaking on June 1 — it got a lot of attention, but thanks to the strike there was no one like Chevy Chase to broaden it into an over-the-top TV comedy routine.

It’s easy to imagine what that might have looked like. Ten days after the Colorado incident, Dana Carvey, arguably history’s most gifted presidential mimic, walked on stage as Biden before 1,300 people at the Golden State Theater in Monterey, Calif., and proceeded to fall flat on his face. He jumped up and walked slowly while pumping his arms furiously which, Carvey pointed out, “doesn’t qualify as jogging.” In his spot-on Biden voice: “Feeling good. Watch me run — cause I know how to run!”

In my book “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s ‘Acting Presidents’,” I examine how impressionists, led by the cast of SNL, have influenced presidential elections over the years. Darrell Hammond’s droll depiction of Al Gore, obsessing over the term “lockbox,” certainly didn’t help Gore in the extremely tight 2000 race. Eight years later, Tina Fey’s brilliantly brutal Sarah Palin (“I can see Russia from my house”) had such a devastating affect on both Palin and her running mate John McCain, that political scientists refer to it as “The Fey Effect.”

I’m guessing that President Biden is secretly hoping the WGA strike drags on. As Gerald Ford wrote after leaving office, “For those people who wanted to see me in less than ‘grand and presidential’ circumstances, Chevy Chase and ’Saturday Night Live’ provided them with plenty of grist for their mills.”

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

Give Donald Trump credit for one thing: The man knows how to make lemonade.

Each time new charges are leveled against the former president, cash registers ring at the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee. Most of Trump’s appeals for money end with the message: “It’s because of the commitment and support from real Patriots, like YOU, that we will SAVE AMERICA! Thank you again for your generous support.”

Trump’s two committees raised about $19 million in the first quarter of this year. Then, on March 30, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him on charges related to hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. That news brought in $4 million in the first 24 hours and another $11 million over the next few weeks.

This month, Trump was so eager to begin monetizing his latest legal problems that he beat prosecutors to the punch in announcing federal indictments for alleged crimes involving the handling of classified materials. Trump quickly emailed supporters: “During this dark chapter for our nation, please consider making a contribution of any amount—truly, even just $1—to stand with me and your fellow patriots…”

As soon as charges were formally announced he began hawking T-shirts with the words, “I stand with Trump” and “06.08.23,” which the sales pitch calls “the date of his unjust indictment.” Obtaining a shirt requires a minimum $47 contribution.

As pundits speculate about Trump’s chances in 2024, they should remember that cash speaks louder than answers to pollsters’ questions. Indeed, in Trump’s case it’s more powerful than even votes themselves.

Following his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 Trump raised an incredible $250 million, according to Congressional investigators — $100 million of it in just the first week after Election Day. In its report on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the select committee noted that Trump amassed most of the money by “bombarding supporters with hundreds of emails, as many as 25 emails per day.”

From the windfall, the committee said $327,000 went to several Trump hotels and the club at Mar-a-Lago. Nearly $100,000 went to the fashion designer Hervé Pierre Braillard, who has created outfits for Melania Trump. Event Strategies, Inc., the company that ran the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse, received $5 million.

Trump’s next big money-making, merch-marketing opportunity comes this summer when prosecutors in Georgia are expected to announce indictments related to election tampering. Collections could be huge.

In 2016 Trump famously boasted, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He neglected to mention how much he’d hope to make by monetizing the trial.

There is, to paraphrase P.T. Barnum, a Trump donor born every minute.

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

At the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Carlsbad, Calif., guests were piling trash and dirty towels in the hallway, and by the looks of things you’d think the staff had gone on strike. In fact, it was business as usual on a weekend, when housekeeping shuts down and guests are reminded that cutbacks initiated as a presumably temporary response to COVID have now become the hospitality industry’s permanent pandemic.

Many hotels — along with airlines, restaurants and other hospitality services — struggled during the pandemic. Customers, for the most part, accepted curtailed service on the assumption that things would return to normal once the crisis ended. Instead, many operators have seized the opportunity to reduce or eliminate things that patrons took for granted.

Services vary widely among hotels and even across multiple brands within large chains. Like many travelers I try to book within a single corporate group, in my case Hilton, because I’m hostage to its loyalty program.

At the Carlsbad property, what was once routine daily housekeeping is now only “by request” and not at all on weekends. Gone are modest amenities such as body lotion and mouthwash. The evening social hour, previously offered Monday through Thursday, now exists only on Wednesday.

For frequent travelers who achieve Hilton’s Diamond status, the changes are more annoying. At the company’s flagship Hilton brand, as well as at the Doubletree and Garden Inn properties, many executive lounges remain shuttered or have cut back dramatically on food and drink. The free breakfast for Hilton’s best customers has been replaced by ten- or fifteen-dollar vouchers — which don’t cover the price of even a simple buffet breakfast.

My point isn’t to single out Hilton, only to cite my own experience in underscoring what is happening across the hospitality spectrum, where services have been reduced in the wake of the pandemic, while prices remain high.

Marriott, which operates 30 hotel brands and more than 8,000 properties worldwide, has adjusted housekeeping so the more you pay the cleaner your surroundings. Its high-end properties, like the Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis, provide free daily cleanings. At the next level, including Sheraton and Le Méridien, rooms get a daily touch-up. Guests at lower level properties, such as Courtyard by Marriott, get their rooms cleaned every other day.

Restaurants don’t find it quite so easy to reduce service, so they’re finding ways to raise prices.

On my Carlsbad trip, dinner at the acclaimed restaurant Campfire included a 4% service charge in addition to tax and tip — a fairly new wrinkle in post-pandemic nickel and diming. The fine print said it was “to help ensure competitive compensation and benefits for our team,” adding that the charge would be removed upon request.

In my view, if a restaurant wants to raise prices it should. But a service charge earmarked for employee benefits seems no different than, say, a 3% charge to make sure the electric bill is paid promptly, or a 6% fee to guarantee tablecloths are properly laundered.

Marketing people refer to this as “price partitioning,” where the actual cost of a meal is disguised by splitting it into smaller pieces (for example, charging for bread, which at Campfire is $9). This prompted the Chicago Tribune to editorialize the other day, “Message to the restaurant industry: Sympathy is giving way to frustration and customers are feeling gouged.”

The hospitality business is difficult, and the pandemic along with rising costs of goods and a labor shortage, have only made it tougher. But loyal customers haven’t removed only their COVID masks. They’re taking off their blindfolds and seeing the post-pandemic service cop-out for the greedy ploy it really is.

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

In a much anticipated chess match in February, 1996, the world champion Garry Kasparov faced IBM’s Deep Blue, the most advanced chess-playing machine. Kasparov lost the first game but went on to win the match in Philadelphia, 4-2. It was humanity’s proudest moment in competition pitting man vs. machine.

Fifteen months later in Manhattan, the two faced off again. In the intervening time engineers fixed a bug in Deep Blue’s programming, while doubling its processing speed. Kasparov lost, stunning the chess community while boosting the hopes and spirits of the tech world.

Today, the notion of a human beating the best computer at chess is as far-fetched as a sprinter outracing a Bugatti.

I thought about that as I tested the AI writing software ChatGPT for the first time. No matter how much I’d heard and read about its capability, I was not prepared for the impact using the software had on my sense of the creative process — personally and professionally — and what the future might hold.

Developed by Open AI in San Francisco, ChatGPT (“Generative Pre-trained Transformer”) responds to plain-English queries and produces — with remarkable speed — text in the form of a simple statement or more complex documents such as letters, articles and even an entire book.

What surprised me most was how cogent the material was when compared with all the forms of AI we’ve come to rely upon in everyday life, from Alexa and Siri to GPS and Google. I was also amazed at how advanced the output had become since 2018 when the Associated Press began distributing computer-written stories about minor league baseball games.

The ChatGPT software, still in beta testing, is available for free, though after just a few hours of dabbling I signed up for the more advanced version for $20 per month. While some of the output reads like a Wikipedia entry, or worse, much of it is surprisingly sharp.

I asked for an outline of a nonfiction book I’ve recently started writing and the treatment contained ideas and perspective I hadn’t considered. I requested advertising copy for my current book, “Playing POTUS,” and a few of the lines were so compelling that I’m using them in promotion. I requested a birthday letter to my son and the message was eerily appropriate, certainly better than what Hallmark sells.

ChatGPT is lacking in whimsy, as several of my Hollywood colleagues discovered when they experimented with it to write sitcom scripts. On the other hand, it’s quite proficient as an author of children’s books and certain how-to guides — dozens of which are already showing up for sale.

Where this fits in the creative community’s future isn’t clear, but at minimum these so-called chatbots are useful for numerous mundane functions and in early research. Beyond that, many of us would like to believe that it is heart and soul that will always be unique to human creativity.

And that leaves readers and my editor asking two questions: Who or what created the previous sentence? And, does anyone really care?

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

I spend the first half hour of my day reading — or, to be more accurate, deleting — emails. Lacking the nerve to “unsubscribe” for fear I’ll miss something of moderate importance, I trash an average of 75 messages every morning, without ever getting beyond the subject line.

Guaranteed to go: Emails beginning with my first name or warning of my last chance to do something. I also delete anything containing an exclamation point.

Among the subject lines on a recent Tuesday: “Our editors want to hear from you!” (The Hill). “Last chance: save on essential spring stories” (Des Moines Register). “Just Arrived!!” (GolfEtail Deals). “Peter, this deal will be music to your ears” (SiriusXM). “Peter, your bonus content is available” (USA Today). “Peter: Love this for you!” (Etsy).

According to a company called Content Marketing Institute, the “10 Best Practices to Write the Perfect Email Subject Line,” include: “Make it personalized,” “Use power words,” “Appeal to vanity,” and “Create FOMO” (fear of missing out). Clearly, none of these practices works on me.

I receive a lot of email newsletters, few of which I actually read. I’m especially annoyed by contrived chattiness, with greetings such as, “Hi, it’s Ashley. Today is Tuesday, so we’re almost halfway to the weekend!” The subject line on one newsletter I quickly deleted was, “Tuesday, I am fading” (The Daily Skimm).

I rely on several news services for overnight updates, but I tend to immediately trash all emails concerning: Tucker Carlson, debate over the deficit, the crypto market, or warnings about El Niño.

Tuesday’s deletions also had these subject lines: “No degree? No problem.” (New York Times). “Scram, roboscams” (Axios). “Bay Area city fights to preserve its rotten legacy” (San Jose Mercury News).

Since I work in the entertainment industry I must delete many showbiz emails, including: “Schwarzenegger Gets Candid on Career…” (Hollywood Reporter). Also: “Journalist Spit on By Johnny Depp’s Cannes Director Speaks Out” (Variety).

I frequently write about politics, but the barrage of worthless emails in that arena is often overwhelming. On Tuesday I trashed without reading: “Trump as President in 2024…” (Donald J. Trump). “Don’t believe Donald Trump” (Conde Nast Spotlight).

According to published reports, the number of emails sent each day worldwide is close to 350 billion.

That’s a whole lot of FOMO.

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.

Newton Minow will always be remembered for a 1961 speech in which he described television as a “vast wasteland.” However, late in life he became less concerned about TV’s wastefulness and more troubled by its very vastness.

The legendary former FCC chairman knew a thing or two about television, having studied it for most of his adult life. He died at his Chicago home the other day at 97 without ever reconciling his love-hate relationship with the medium that so profoundly affects our lives.

Minow was actually an inveterate fan of much that TV had to offer, and his real purpose in that infamous speech to the National Association of Broadcasters was to challenge and inspire. “I am in Washington,” he explained, “to help broadcasting, not to harm it; to strengthen it, not weaken it; to reward it, not to punish it; to encourage it, not threaten it; and to stimulate it, not censor it. Above all, I am here to uphold and protect the public interest.”

In conversation with me 60 years after delivering the speech, Minow explained, “Our goal was to enlarge choice for the viewer. When I was at the FCC there were only two-and-a-half commercial networks. Now we have public TV, cable, satellite, pay tv, with almost unlimited choices. It’s a totally different medium.”

Television’s enormous growth — with digital platforms joining the delivery systems Minow mentioned — prompted him to gradually reevaluate his views. “I used to think providing more choice was in the public interest,” he told me, “but I am not sure today.”

In lambasting TV programming in the 1960s, Minow cited “a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.” That’s still a reasonable way to summarize much of what’s on today. But, modern viewers are also enjoying what many call a second Golden Age of programming.

So, what’s the problem?

“Fractionalization of the audience provides more choice,” Minow said, “but we pay a big price. Our country now is much more divided because we do not share the same news or believe the same facts.”

Barack Obama, who awarded Minow the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, praised him for “helping launch the satellites that made nationwide broadcasts possible, cementing presidential debates as a national institution, helping usher in public television, and reminding the media of its obligation to foster a well-informed citizenry.”

But Newton Minow’s good intentions — beginning with the speech that launched his career in public service — were not enough. “Back then,” he told me, “Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in our country. Who is trusted today?”

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Copyright 2023 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s latest book is “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s Acting Presidents,” about comedians who impersonated presidents.