US library pokes fun at politics with Bob Hope

[June 12, 2010]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bob Hope was joking about presidents before it was completely kosher.

When he got his first radio show, he knew he couldn't keep it funny with "39 weeks of mother-in-law jokes," as he put it. So Hope pioneered topical monologues -- copied by many comedians since -- and suddenly the presidents were fair game.

Hope's long career spoofing presidents and politicians from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Bill Clinton traces the ever evolving link between entertainment and politics in an exhibit opening Friday at the Library of Congress. For the first time, the library is placing Hope's joke file of 85,000 pages on public view, arranged by topic in digital kiosks.

"It's really a thrill," said his daughter and longtime producer Linda Hope. "I was on the other side of so much of this, like his trips going overseas to entertain the troops."

Hope died in 2003, just after his 100th birthday, but was telling jokes almost until the end.

Early in his career, he was nervous about making fun of Roosevelt. At his first White House correspondents' dinner in 1944, he didn't know how the jokes would go over.

"But he just decided he was going to be brash and let them have it -- but being respectful," said Linda Hope. "That was the thing that kind of set Dad apart a little bit: He was really basically respectful of both sides of the political argument."

And he was a hit at the Roosevelt press dinner, said curator Alan Gevinson.

"People said, 'He's another Will Rogers,' who had just died in 1935, as far as becoming part of the Washington political scene," Gevinson said.

It helped that Hope was friends with almost all the presidents over the years, even though he joked President Ronald Reagan as the oldest chief executive made Poligrip "the official presidential seal" and that Clinton's inauguration would be the first to require an intermission. He also had zingers for Congress, saying they spent his money faster than he could make it.

"Normally, I don't go for political jokes -- too many of them are getting elected," he once said.

He didn't want to be president himself, Hope said, because his wife, Dolores, "wouldn't want to move to a smaller house."

Comedian Stephen Colbert greets visitors to the exhibit, "Hope for America: Performers, Politics and Pop Culture," in a video tribute. The satirical conservative TV pundit even takes a swing with the trademark golf club that Hope liked to use as a vaudeville cane. The club from Hope's 1969 world USO tour is on display, along with his Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Colbert salutes his own portrait in the intro but turns serious when he calls Hope "not just a funny man" but "a patriot." He also paid tribute to Hope on his show last year, with golf club in hand, when he visited troops in Iraq.

"Some of the younger troops have asked me what the golf club is all about," Colbert said at the time. "Well, it is partly an homage to Bob Hope who did USOs like this for 250 years. Good man."

The exhibit draws on Hope's extensive collection of personal papers, films and radio and television broadcasts, which he donated to the library in 1998. It also features clips and stories from Johnny Carson, David Letterman, the Smothers Brothers and others.

Hope's story intersects with changes in the country, from the McCarthy hearings to President John F. Kennedy's election, which was "a catalyst for entertainers to start speaking their minds again," as politics changed and Kennedy invited artists into the White House, Gevinson said.

While Hope usually was politically neutral, he took a strong stand on the Vietnam war, supporting the president and troops.

He also made a point of satirizing Anita Bryant during her campaign against gay rights because he disagreed with her (until his advertising sponsor, Texaco, asked him to stop because viewers complained).

"There's risks of getting involved in politics when you're an entertainer," Gevinson said, "risks of antagonizing people."

Hope was also known for efforts to try to unite the country during divisive times.

Linda Hope said the nation's current polarization would worry her father, but that he would support President Barack Obama. He would support whomever the president was, she said.

The exhibit will remain on long-term view at the library.

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Online:

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/

[Associated Press; By BRETT ZONGKER]

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