RUSH: All right, let’s talk a little Family Guy from last night. I did not mention it in the opening monologue because last Monday when I talked about how Hank Haney was mad at me and a couple other things a lot of people blew their gaskets ’cause I wasn’t sticking to the issues. They said it was one of the most boring opens and monologues they’d ever heard. So that’s why I didn’t do the Family Guy stuff in the opening segment. We’re going to get to a little bit of it now. First up, Seth MacFarlane — who is the creator of Family Guy — was on The Tonight Show Friday night with Jay Leno. Leno said to him, ‘Do you find that conservative guys in real life don’t take themselves as seriously as you guys on the left? ‘Cause I know a lot of times I go to Texas, a bunch of conservative guys, do a bunch of George Bush jokes and they really laugh.’
LENO: But you do a liberal thing and you do jokes with Barack, ‘Ooooh, oooooh.’
MACFARLANE: Yeah, yeah. I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
LENO: Yeah, they get a little uptight. A little up. tight, yeah. And what is he (Rush) gonna play? What is he…?
MACFARLANE: The episode — which actually airs this Sunday.
LENO: Mmm-hmm.
MACFARLANE: Brian goes over — Brian, the notoriously liberal dog —
LENO: Right.
MACFARLANE: — goes over to the other side. And Rush is kind of his mentor, and he sang a song, God bless him.
LENO: He sings?
LENO: And has he got a good voice?
MACFARLANE: It’s passable.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
MACFARLANE: It’s passable. He’s not Sinatra. He’s Eddie Fisher.
RUSH: All right. We have audio of the song, and it’s about two minutes and ten seconds. We can’t play the whole thing, but let’s play a little bit of it here going into the break. Keeping in mind I’m deaf, and this is a melody I had never heard before, so I’m just wild guessing what it is.
BRIAN: (singing) I dream of Republicantown where men to the right of the aisle don’t back down. (gunshot) The streets are aglow with the smell of apple pies, and babies come out of the womb in coats and ties. Nice place, huh, Rush?
RUSH CARTOON: It’s a paradise, Brian. Trees grow from Republican sod, and everyone prays to a proper right-wing god!
LOIS: Republican Catholics?
BRIAN: (singing) Yes, indeed there are.
LOIS: Republican Muslims?
BRIAN: (singing) Well, let’s not go too far.
LOIS: No Muslims?
RUSH CARTOON: Ehhh, too many tall buildings.
BRIAN: (singing) They’ve outlawed all abortions, late or early. It’s a sin we can’t abide.
RUSH: Okay. We’ll play the rest of it after the break. We can’t fit it all in. That’s just a little tease. I guess the most frequent criticism I’m getting is that I allowed conservatism to be ‘cartooned.’ Ha! But everything in the show is cartooned. It is a cartoon, but that ending, folks? I’m running down the street, I morph into an eagle, flying into the sky, into a big American flag? I mean, it doesn’t get any better than that. Conservatism looked pretty good to me.
RUSH: I just got an e-mail from a listener in Davenport, Iowa, claiming to boycott the rest of the show for today since I brought up the Family Guy episode last night. So here’s the whole song in its entirety. It runs two minutes, ten seconds.
BRIAN: (singing) I dream of Republicantown where men to the right of the aisle don’t back down. (gunshot) The streets are aglow with the smell of apple pies, and babies come out of the womb in coats and ties. Nice place, huh, Rush?
RUSH CARTOON: It’s a paradise, Brian. Trees grow from Republican sod, and everyone prays to a proper right-wing god!
LOIS: Republican Catholics?
BRIAN: (singing) Yes, indeed there are.
LOIS: Republican Muslims?
BRIAN: (singing) Well, let’s not go too far.
LOIS: No Muslims?
RUSH CARTOON: Ehhh, too many tall buildings.
BRIAN: (singing) They’ve outlawed all abortions, late or early. It’s a sin we can’t abide.
LOIS: (singing) What if you find a fetus left abandoned?
RUSH CARTOON: We just take it and we jam it back inside.
BRIAN: (singing) Oh, yes, ’cause I dream of Republicantown: The place where the happiest smile is Cheney’s frown. I’ll bet you a buck you won’t find a damn thing wrong ’cause when you come down to it, this is where we all belong.
LOIS: Who else lives here?
BRIAN: Oh, big names, Lois. (singing) We’re watching Republican stars.
BRIAN: (singing) Chuck Norris is one.
RUSH CARTOON: And he’s got a right-wing beard.
BRIAN: (singing) Jon Voight is another.
RUSH CARTOON: He’s just right-wing weird.
BRIAN: His, uh… His daughter’s pretty hot, though.
RUSH CARTOON: At one time, Brian. At one time.
LOIS: (singing) And how about global warming?
BRIAN: (singing) It’s a snow job by Obama and his crew.
LOIS: (singing) But aren’t all his findings backed by science?
RUSH CARTOON: Careful, Lois. Now you’re sounding like a Jew.
RABBI BRIAN: Oy!
BRIAN: (singing) We dream of Republicantown where Clinton is viewed as a crazy commie clown.
RUSH CARTOON: A place where America is growing free and strong.
BRIAN: (singing) ‘Cause when you come down to it, this is wheeeere weeee aaall belooooooong!
RUSH: The episode entitled ‘Excellence in Broadcasting’ of Family Guy last night on Fox.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Darrell in Elkton, Virginia. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
RUSH: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. And I didn’t know you were so adept in the martial arts but you put a whipping —
RUSH: (laughing) That was funny.
CALLER: (laughing) I want to thank you for everything that you do. We couldn’t do it without you.
RUSH: I know, that’s very true.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing) Was that the first time you’ve ever seen Family Guy?
CALLER: That was the first time I’ve ever seen it. I heard you last week say you were going to be on there so I made sure that I listened to that and I thought it was great.
RUSH: Well, it was fun. And, you know, to me it was a career challenge, do something I haven’t done before. And of course the singing, which is very difficult for me, a melody I’ve never heard to try to do that ’cause I’m deaf, so the whole thing was a challenge. There was a lot of time spent in the sound booth, but everybody on that show was as nice as they coulda been. What did you say, Dawn? I know. Nobody would have known. Well, you know, the song is from How to Succeed in Business, but I had never heard the song. (singing) ‘I Dream of Republicantown.’ I spent so much time trying to get that down pat. Finally, it worked.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: And to the phones we go, to Frederick, Maryland. This is Lorna, and it’s great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Very well. Thank you.
CALLER: Good. Congratulations on your marriage, and I listened to you since you were on TV. (giggling) Now I’m giving away my age.
RUSH: Well, mine, too. That goes back to 1992, ’94, somewhere around there.
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve learned a lot from you, learned a lot. But I just wanted to share. My family, we watched the Family Guy last night.
CALLER: We thought it was awesome. We enjoyed Nancy Pelosi in her office there, and the ironic thing with Barney Frank. One interesting fact: My son who is just 13 but he’s very wise for his age, at the end of the show when you were flying out and turned into the eagle and that ended the show, he looked at us and he said, ‘They should have had two right wings on the eagle.’ (laughing)
RUSH: (laughs) That’s cute. That’s cute.
CALLER: But one thing I wanted to share earlier in the show, you were talking about racists and who was racist, the 31% or the 91%?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Again, my son, who’s very much — could have a political future, you never know. But he was at school in middle school, and you know how much education you get especially about history in middle school, and they had a discussion, I guess, on President Barack Obama, and he raised some questions, and apparently a couple African-American kids said to him, ‘Well, you don’t like President Obama. You’re a racist,’ and my son turned to them and he said, ‘Just because I don’t like President Obama does not make me a racist.’ So I thought, ‘You know, good for him.’
RUSH: That is pretty good for age 13 to have that kind of presence of mind, but this was all predictable. It was I, your host, El Rushbo, who said it. Back when so many people thought that the election of the first black president would end racism, bring about harmony and so forth, I said, ‘Folks, it’s only gonna make it worse. Any criticism of the guy is going to be said to be racist,’ and it is. To this day. This is what Republicans are still afraid of, in fact, is being called ‘racist’ if they criticize him. They’re still afraid to jump all the way in with both feet on this because they’re afraid of that charge of being called racist. But the question she’s referring to is there’s a poll out, Gallup poll: 91% of blacks approve of the job Obama’s doing; 36% of whites approve. So who’s the racist? The 91% of blacks or the 36% of whites? That was the question.
Mike in New York City, great to have you on the program. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. I’m a big fan.
CALLER: I’m going to have to disagree with the two previous callers who have commented on the Family Guy episode.
RUSH: Hmm.
CALLER: At the risk of offending you I’m a big fan and a longtime listener.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I watched Family Guy many, many times. I think it’s very funny but as a conservative I can see obviously the bias that Seth MacFarlane puts into the show over the years.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I think you were portrayed as charming and funny and self-deprecating and gregarious, and I think conservatism was mocked, like you’ve gotten some criticism that you’ve said in some e-mails. You went along with it, but I think the bottom line is just look at the way Cheney was portrayed in the caricature, you know? They take shots on both sides at liberals and conservatives, but I really think that it was definitely less flattering to the conservative principle than you might have seen looking at it firsthand.
RUSH: Well, no, I looked at the script. I didn’t see the animation. I looked at the script, and they made fun of George Bush. I’m handing him a lollipop.
RUSH: That was funny?
CALLER: It was funny.
RUSH: You think so? Now, why was that funny and what they did with Cheney wasn’t? Why was that funny?
CALLER: Well, Cheney was made out to be a monster, and the left can’t even make a meaningful caricature of Cheney. It’s always a —
RUSH: Let me tell you something. It’s interesting. I got a note from Seth MacFarlane before the program aired last night. I had not seen the program. I’d just seen my script.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: I’d seen the whole script. I’d seen my part and everybody else’s part. I had not seen any of the animation other than, you know, what they released last week, and Seth sent me this note. He was getting hate mail like he has never received before from people who thought he had screwed up by making me look human. He had made a drastic error by making conservatism look funny and nice and reasonable, and they are accusing him of being a sellout. And what he said to me in the e-mail is, ‘Rush, I have to tell you. My people, my side of the aisle are supposedly all these tolerant, open-minded, willing to accept all points of view. You’re more progressive than they are. These people have absolutely no sense of humor about anything on this show last night.’ He was getting more beat up than I am.
CALLER: Well, I think you’ve said that over the years. We know who the real closed-minded people are and the most dogmatic of all people are atheists and folks who can’t even hear an opinion that slightly disagrees with their own.
CALLER: But I don’t trust Seth MacFarlane. That’s the bottom line. You know, there were funny aspects to it, but on the whole I think it was a bit more insulting than you’re admitting to — to conservatism, not to you. You came off looking like a superhero. You actually were a superhero in the show. You know, beating up all the muggers who went after Brian. But I just do not trust Hollywood. Seth MacFarlane has proven his… You know, I know this guy’s stripes. I can see it in what he’s put out there. I’ve heard him speak. I’ve listened to…. you know.
RUSH: Yeah, okay. Let me tell you something. If you know all that, then you have to admit: This episode was tame compared to other things Seth MacFarlane has done to conservatism and conservatives in previous episodes of Family Guy. This is tame.
CALLER: I would agree. I would definitely agree with that, yes.
RUSH: And you say they made me look like a superhero, gregarious and, I am conservatism. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing)
RUSH: No, no, no, look. Let me tell you something. My ego didn’t get stroked.
CALLER: If conservatism is offended then you should be offended.
RUSH: No, my ego didn’t get stroked. There were a couple things in that show last night I didn’t like. There were a couple of things in the show that I did like. There were some things that I demanded they change and they did change. I don’t even remember what they are now, but I first looked at the script, there were some things in there that I said, ‘I’m not going to say this.’ It was not about me. It was about other conservatives. But, you know, toward the end of the program when I’m telling the dog, ‘Hey, look, if there’s whatever, whatever, I’ll be there.’ I mean, clearly conservatism was being negatively cliched in those two lines. But, you know, it’s a cartoon. It’s a comedy show. And to me, this was not the place to draw a line in the sand, given what it is. It’s Sunday night. It’s up against football, the Chicago Bears and New York Giants — which had a record rating last night, by the way, or close to it. Sunday Night Football last night was over the top because they had New York and Chicago as markets playing. But, no. You can tell me whatever you thought of this thing all you want. You will not hurt my feelings. You won’t offend me at all.
CALLER: Luckily I had it DVR’d so I watched both the football game and Family Guy. But I think, on the whole, I would say it was still a positive that you did it, and I think you introduced your persona to a lot of people who would never, ever otherwise have seen you or heard you firsthand.
RUSH: Well, that’s why Seth MacFarlane was getting all the hate mail that he was getting from his people. So that’s a good observation you made. That’s a pretty good point.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
CALLER: Thank you. Mega dittos, Rush. I was watching the Family Guy episode last night with my wife and my three-year-old daughter.
RUSH: Three?
CALLER: We really enjoyed it.
RUSH: Your three-year-old daughter?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: Yeah, we thought it was great. We figure if you can’t poke fun at yourself, I’m a very, you know, conservative person, and getting my wife in that vein as well. She’s not quite a liberal, but she’s starting to see things in a new way. We’ve only been married a couple years.
CALLER: I don’t believe so.
RUSH: Well, then you’re probably telling the truth about her. Just is a little bit liberal.
CALLER: (laughing) Oh yes, but, you know, if liberals can’t be poked fun at and conservatives can’t be poked fun at, then what’s the point?
RUSH: Let me tell you something, liberals cannot laugh at themselves. Liberals don’t laugh, period. They’re constantly ringing their hands upset about something. If you can’t laugh at yourself, that’s a huge part of life, to me, being able to laugh at yourself, and when you do, when you laugh at yourself it doesn’t mean you don’t take yourself seriously, at all, quite the opposite.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: To Atlanta, this is Kiefer. Great to have you on the program. Hi!
CALLER: Amateur dittos from the conservative suburbs of Atlanta.
RUSH: Amateur what?
CALLER: Dittos.
RUSH: Oh, amateur dittos. Okay, thank you.
RUSH: You are sharp. You are quick. You are really foresighted and quick. You would make a great personal manager for somebody in this business who was not able to see the future.
CALLER: Well, I’ve got a couple of friends that are fringe actors and then another guy that, as he describes it, when Obama was running for president, while he was working at Chicken Noodle News here, just another day helping to get Barack elected —