Sneaky Bastard

I was talking with Jenifer yesterday about puppies and kittens. She wants one, but it’s not allowed in her apartment lease, so it’s moot. That reminded me of one of my favorite SNL sketches from 20 Oct 1984, in which Jesse Jackson is the host of a game show, The Question is Moot. I did a bit of Googling and found a copy of the video — not great quality, but good enough. Click on the screenshot to load a QuickTime movie (MPEG-4/AAC 352×240).

Until yesterday, I hadn’t seen it since it first aired. For the record, I was just shy of 13 years old when it was broadcast. I remembered that Jesse Jackson left the show with the new car, but nothing about his commentary on Reaganomics and race/class inequality. Oh, how far we’ve come! Just kidding.

The following four audio files are from the This American Life archives. Each are pieces by our friend Cheryl Trykv. After her recent visit to Southern California, I went to the This American Life site to locate the episodes with her work. She’s awesome. I only wish I had a recording of the piece about the brief love affair with the squirrel king. C’est la vie.

Note that the track names are all wrong. The original metadata didn’t include the title, so they are my best guess.