Caller Has Idea for New Rush TV Show

RUSH: Phillip in Houston, welcome, sir. I’m glad you waited. You are on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. And mega-non-brainwashed dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I have an idea for you for a new TV show, if I could have the opportunity to discuss it.
RUSH: Well, everybody wants to be a creative artist today. I welcome the idea.
CALLER: Well, I know you value your off time, and I’m thinking of a series — maybe four times a year during sweeps week to maximize profit for you and the companies that might carry it — based somewhat on what Oliver North does with War Stories.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm.
CALLER: But do it as a political history. For instance, FDR and the New Deal, how it’s progressed through the years. You have the whole week with Kennedy and taxation, Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crisis, et cetera — and I think that would be great to have in the future, hopefully, for children in schools to teach them conservatism.
RUSH: It’s not a bad idea. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing a — back when I was doing my TV show, Ailes and I were toying with the idea of doing a — Saturday morning cartoon show based on American history, to counter some of the drivel that Saturday morning cartoons are now pushing.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Captain Planet promoting anti-big business and pro-environmentalism and this sort of thing. The problem with doing TV four times a year is it would disappoint far more people than it would satisfy. Four times a year would simply not be enough for the audience.
CALLER: Well, I do have a cute title for it, too.
RUSH: That would that be?
CALLER: The Righting of American History, and writing without the W.
RUSH: (Laughing.) R-i-g-h-t-i-n-g.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Every now and then I get calls from people who want me to venture back to television and so forth, and (sigh) I don’t know. I’ve been through all of the reasons why it’s not that big a deal to me on previous occasions. I was out in LA the first weekend in January, and on a Saturday, I did eight hours in the studio to do three, 90-second little skits! (sigh) I’m not complaining about it. I’m just telling you how it is. In one of these skits I answer a phone, a speakerphone. There were 12 takes for a close-up of my hand hitting the button on the phone. You know why? Because they were having trouble making sure that the lights didn’t reflect off the phone. So I said, “Get the makeup babe out here and powder the phone! Why should this take 12 takes?”
But that’s their business, and they want to get it best and they want to have plenty of options to cut and choose and paste from and so forth. It’s just hurry up and wait, and it requires meetings with a bunch of people that you really wouldn’t want there, but they have to be there because TV requires five people for every spoken word! It’s just the way it is: stage managers, floor managers, producers, executive producers, assistant executive producers. (sigh) I haven’t had one meeting to do this program in 18-and-a-half years, not one meeting, and I’ve never told somebody what I’m going to do. If I hadn’t had such a rooted experience in radio, television might affect me differently, but there’s no spontaneity in it; it’s all scripted, structured and so forth. But I always consider it. I’ve never totally closed the door on it. I just want to be honest with you people when you bring it up, because I’m flattered by the suggestion.