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PBS mainstay Mark Russell brings his trademark bow tie and equal opportunity satire to a live, national show broadcast from Tampa.
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 9, 2002
When I call him for our interview, the memory is fresh in my mind, like a waft of cool air on a hot summer day.
It was, I'll admit, an incongruous image nearly two decades old. Imagine a spectacled black kid in a poor neighborhood parked in front of his TV laughing at a bow tie-wearing piano player cracking jokes about Ronald Reagan and trickle-down economics on PBS.
But that's how Mark Russell affected me.
He has been working the same shtick -- turning old songs into new parodies about political figures past and present -- since the McCarthy era. But, somehow, he managed to touch the funny bone of a kid who should have been listening to Eddie Murphy records and watching Facts of Life episodes (which I was also doing; hey, I wasn't that out of it), poking fun at the absurdities of Washington and the nation's political scene.
And even now, as the hip mainstream turns to Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, Bill Maher or Jay Leno for its political satire, Russell, now 70, keeps strapping on the bow tie and taking on the political fat cats in his own fun-loving manner.
But how does this guy reach an audience when political satire often equals Dennis Miller's raw jokes about a Viagra-popping Bob Dole?
"You quote Will Rogers, who said, 'I belong to no organized political party (wait for it) . . . I'm a Democrat," said Russell, when asked if he ever feels a bit old-fashioned after nearly 40 years in the game. "You're laughing. . . . That joke is 80 years old. And it still works."
So does Russell, who traveled to 100 cities in 2000 (a recent high point), dividing his time between well-paying corporate gigs and theater shows for the public. ("I tell the IRS I do about six shows a year, mostly for diseases," cracked Russell, revealing a marked inclination to take nothing seriously during our 45-minute interview. "The funny thing is, they're all in Nebraska.")
The two of us are talking because Russell is coming to Tampa, appearing at WEDU-Ch. 3's studio at 8 p.m. Wednesday in a performance broadcast live to PBS stations across the country.
The live, national broadcast is a first for WEDU, which initially enlisted Russell in the late '80s to perform a show for longtime station supporters that was broadcast later. Since then, the Tampa PBS station has brought Russell to area venues such as Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater and Van Wezel Performing Arts Center in Sarasota.
So when station officials heard that Russell was planning to take some of the six shows he performs annually for PBS to cities outside his traditional home base of Buffalo, N.Y., they jumped to offer the comic a gig in Florida.
"This is another example of being opportunistic," said WEDU president Dick Lobo, who took over the station in July with a mandate to revitalize its fundraising and programming. The Russell show is the latest in a line of recent projects developed by Lobo to raise the station's profile, including participating in New Florida, a TV magazine show featuring material contributed from PBS stations across the state.
Russell continues to be popular among WEDU viewers, but Lobo acknowledged that reaching new audiences while presenting a performer that appeals to the station's core older crowd is a continuing challenge.
"I don't know that his humor will appeal to the Bill Maher or Letterman fans, but he's had a longevity you can't deny," he said. "I don't think it matters what age you are. He's still very relevant."
Indeed, with a Bush in the White House, Katherine Harris in Congress and Henry Kissinger back in the news, you'd think it would be high times for a comic whose classic line is, "I have 535 writers. One hundred in the Senate and 435 in the House of Representatives."
But when reality is funnier than any joke, what's a satirist to do? "The line between satire and the original event is invisible now," Russell said, quoting another political comic, Tom Lehrer, to whom he's often compared. "(Lehrer's) original quote was 'Satire died when Henry Kissinger was given the Nobel Peace Prize.' I would update that from year to year, (saying), 'Satire died when Sonny Bono joined the House Intelligence Committee.' Then he died, so now, Mary Bono is the name. And now Kissinger (heading the committee to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks). . . . Satire is not only dead, it's just evaporated into the soil."
Russell's take on satire also exposes a key element of his success: knowing when to pull back.
He'll hit Democrats as hard as Republicans, following a zinger on Bush with an aside on Hillary Clinton. Unlike his more acerbic brethren, Russell doesn't want to anger his audience or make them too uncomfortable; the goal is a lighthearted exploration of the absurdity in politics, not Politically Incorrect set to music.
Of course, when Russell began performing -- initially, during the late '50s in a bar across from the Senate Office Building and in the '60s during his legendary lounge act at the Shoreham Hotel -- he wasn't perceived as an easygoing humorist.
"When I started out, I was thought to be very mean. . . . They thought I was a Communist," he said, laughing at the memory. "To make it worse, I was only in my 20s, so they're wondering, 'Who is this kid?' These days, I get faulted for not being mean enough. . . . And the politicians, all they want from me is a joke they can steal."
For years, mainstream show biz outlets declined to feature Russell, saying his material was too political. But the Watergate scandal pushed Nixon's absurdities to center stage in the mid '70s, just in time for a producer from Buffalo PBS station WNED to stop by the Shoreham and catch Russell's act.
Unaware that he was a Buffalo native, the station asked Russell to head north to tape a special performance for them in 1975, starting a tradition that he has maintained for nearly 30 years.
And now that younger, flashier comics get the magazine profiles and network TV time, Russell remains philosophical about the niche he has carved on PBS and on the road, speaking to fans who might get an Adlai Stevenson joke quicker than a Jenna Bush gibe.
"There's nothing I can do about it -- it's PBS: We're like liver," he said. "You may not like us, but you know it's good for you. And I'm very sensitive about this . . . about old guys trying to work young. I don't try to use the new buzzwords and references. . . . I wouldn't know them, anyway. If they hadn't changed the copyright laws, Stephen Foster's heirs could have sued me 1,000 times by now."
There was a time when Russell had to put the brakes on his legendary jocularity: right after last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Beginning a PBS show in October 2001 with the first serious opening he'd ever done, he talked about visiting New York and seeing victims' pictures plastered on lampposts and store windows throughout Manhattan.
"That was just as powerful as being at ground zero," he said. "I continued doing those (serious openings) for a couple of months. It's part of human nature; you come out of a funeral, and somebody eventually breaks the ice with a joke. . . . It lightens the mood a bit. And that's what I did."
In Tampa, he'll open the show with a lighthearted travelogue around the area. Oh, and there might be a few jokes about the recent elections glitches ("What a brilliant concept: touch-screen voting machines for senior citizens. . . . You ever get behind the guy in the supermarket who can't figure out the little credit card thing?" he cracked. "I guess they shipped the machines back to Toys "R" Us and everything worked out okay.")
And he'll keep tweaking the politicians on all sides, convinced that equal opportunity derision is the key to his particular brand of show biz success.
"For a while there, if you were hitting Bush too hard or you were hitting Reagan too hard, you'd see some guy's jaw working or his fist clenching, and you'd, quick, revisit Miss Lewinsky and that would calm the guy down," Russell said.
"Before Clinton, I knew, if I suddenly turn the subject and we take a sentimental visit back to the bridge of Chappaquiddick, it would be like pouring cool water over his fevered brow," he added. "And he would be pacificed. It's that simple. It's a game."
-- To reach Eric Deggans, call (727) 893-8521, e-mail deggans@sptimes.com or see the St. Petersburg Times Web site at www.sptimes.com .
AT A GLANCE: The Mark Russell Comedy Special airs at 8 p.m. Wednesday on WEDU-Ch. 3.