The Satirist

HARRY SHEARER became an actor at the age of seven, at the urging of his piano teacher. As a kid on The Jack Benny Show, when the cast was doing a read-through, there was one line in the script where, he says, "I just got it in my mind to do it with a slight Brooklyn accent, and when I did that, Benny just started howling, banging the table and laughing."

That moment was an auspicious omen of Shearer's future career. Today, foremost among his many talents is an uncanny ability to mimic the voices, mannerisms and points-of-view of countless public figures-entertainers, politicians, newcasters-with satirical precision. His radio program, Le Show-now in its 21st year-is broadcast every Sunday morning on KCRW in Santa Monica ("From the edge of America, from the home of the homeless") and syndicated to over 70 stations around the country.

"It took an age and a half to get Le Show carried by WNYC in the first place," he tells me, "and then the broadcast landed at the distinguished hour of midnight Sunday. Which was just theoretically in compliance with the only contract provision we apply to affiliates-the program has to be broadcast on Sunday. (Le Show is given to stations free.) After a few months, the program was moved to 1 a.m., which, last time I looked, was actually Monday. Then, a few months later, it was moved again, to 2 a.m. At that point, I lost patience with them. On a broadcast, I had Ralph the Talking Computer play the role of WNYC's manager, and I fired the station on the air."

In the tradition of Lenny Bruce, Shearer plays all the characters in little theatrical productions that serve as a vehicle for his incisive humor. He occasionally presents a phone conversation between George W. Bush and his father, taking the part of both and capturing the nuances of each. On the eve of Bush's trip to England, he confides to the former president:

"You know, this protest stuff is just a lot of hype cooked up by our friends in the liberal media to distract Americans from the good news that I'm having tea with the queen. I mean, I've been thinking about it. One day I'm sucking Jack Daniel's off a frozen trailer hitch, 10 years later I'm having tea with the frigging Queen of England! You know, that's the same kind of transformation the Iraqis are gonna experience if we play with our cards right..."

In his own voice, referring to Bush's crusade to stamp out global terrorism, Shearer observes, "It's like the war on drugs. It's a totally metaphorical war in which some people get killed. I expect the Partnership for a Terrorist Free America to start soon."

One of the voices he does on Le Show is CBS news anchor Dan Rather. When the Museum of Television & Radio honored Rather, he personally invited Shearer to attend. Shearer wanted to talk about issues, but Rather wanted to discuss This Is Spinal Tap, the classic rock 'n' roll mockumentary where Shearer played Derek Smalls, the bassist in the band. ^^^ Shearer also does the voice of NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, and went through a phase of counting-and recording for a radio montage-the number of times Brokaw said the word "tonight" in his newcasts. The record was 17. However, I started counting the number of times Harry used the expression "Ladies and gentlemen" on Le Show, and the record was 15. For example, he recalls asking a waitress, "Excuse me, what flavor ice creams do you have?" "And her reply, ladies and gentlemen, was 'Today?'"

Shearer has a few "copyrighted features" on Le Show. I won a bet with my wife Nancy that they're not really copyrighted, and perhaps as a result of that bet, he recently introduced "Tales of Airport Security," where he reads listeners' accounts of such misadventures, calling it "a copyrighted feature of this broadcast, and when I say that, of course I am lying. That's full disclosure, ladies and gentlemen."

Another "copyrighted feature" is "Apologies of the Week," ranging from the creator of a comic strip, Get Fuzzy, apologizing for suggesting that Pittsburgh smells bad, to the president of Serbia apologizing for evil committed during the war in Bosnia. From Brazil's government apologizing to the country's senior citizens for forcing them to show up at Social Security offices to prove they're not dead, to Burger King apologizing to a woman who was ordered by a franchise employee to finish breastfeeding her baby in the bathroom or leave, because it made a customer uncomfortable.

"Yeah," Shearer observes, "it brings you down seeing somebody eating better than you at a Burger King."

When Rush Limbaugh was outed as an addict to prescription painkillers and went to rehab, Shearer did his version of Rush ranting there, which resulted in some hate mail. The reason? "Rush is doing a radio show in his head in detox," he explains. "So first Bill Clinton calls him, in this nightmare-one of Rush's trademark lines is, 'With talent on loan from God'-then John Ashcroft calls him, and the first thing he says is, 'Rush, this is John Ashcroft, God wants his talent back.' That set them off."

Limbaugh seems like a cartoon character, but Shearer also does the voices of several actual cartoon characters on The Simpsons, though it's possible that more Americans know who Ned Flanders is than John Ashcroft. Since Harry does both Mr. Burns and Smithers, I asked, "When you're taping The Simpsons, do you just stand there and talk to yourself?"

"Yes," he said, "and that happens a lot. When Hank [Azaria] plays Apu and Chief Wiggum, he'll talk to himself, and when Dan [Castellaneta] plays Homer and his dad, he'll talk to himself."

I ask, "What's the difference between you and Al Franken?"

"Al is, of course, literally a Democratic court jester. He clearly wears his endorsements where his wit should be. I'm a satirist. My job is to make fun of all of them. People who supposedly practice the art of satire and then retire to the councils of power to write jokes for their leaders-people like Al Franken-really ought to have their satirist cards revoked."

Shearer's philosophy of comedy is, "Comedy is good, reality is better." His all-time favorite example:

"Well, I would say my object of idolatry in that regard would be the tape of Richard Nixon just before he makes his resignation speech. You can't beat that. [In Nixon's voice] 'Ollie there, he's always trying to take another picture of me, but he's always trying to get one of me picking my nose. You wouldn't do that, would you, Ollie? That's enough now.' Just the lunacy of him kidding around with this crew that you can actually see on the tape, they don't know what to make of this, and a guy who entered a field where one of the primary qualifications is the ability to make charming small talk, and then at this climactic, penultimate moment in Nixon's fall, what does he choose to do but walk in and make this insane small talk? That to me is one of the great comic choices ever."

"Final question: Is there something you'd like to apologize for?"

"There are a bunch of performances I want to apologize for, but I'm not gonna single them out in case somebody happened to have liked them, and then they feel betrayed by me."