Copyright The HUMOR Project, Inc 1993 -- All rights reserved
This first appeared in Laughing Matters Volume 10, Number 3

Pat Paulsen has never stopped being funny. I had the pleasure of meeting with him and his wife, Noma, at the Hotel Roosevelt, an art deco hotel in the middle of Hollywood. With an election year almost upon us, we need his humor now more than ever.

Pat Paulsen was born in a small fishing village in Washington State. Pat doesn't remember much about his early childhood-- "I was too young," he explains. He does remember heading down to California when he was ten-- the whole family riding in a 1929 Hu pmobile with a mattress on top and pots and pans hanging out the windows. "We weren't exactly homeless but we may as well have been."

Graduating from Ft. Barry Grade School, Pat ranked second in his class. A somewhat misleading statement since Ward Foster was the only other one in the class.

In 1967, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour premiered. Pat was hired because he sold them cheap songs and would run errands. At first he was cast as their editorialist and his comedic comments on the issues of the day propelled him into the national cons ciousness.

Pat was later approached by the Smothers Brothers with the idea of running for President. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, his dry-witted, dead-pan parody of presidential campaigns gave the American people a new cultural hero as Pat created the most elaborate political satire in history.

Pat's campaign was based in comedy and he ran it using outright lies, doubletalk, and unfounded attacks on his challengers. Who would have thought that this style would be the method of campaigns in the future? Even though he didn't win the election, hi s work on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour earned Pat an Emmy in 1968.

Pat currently appears in nightclubs, theaters and conventions throughout the country. He also owns a summer theater in Muskegon, Michigan called the Cherry County Playhouse where he has produced and starred in some twenty different plays.

Pat recently received the International Platform Association's prestigious "Mark Twain Award" for his outstanding work in the field of comedy, joining the likes of Art Buchwald, Mark Russell and Steve Allen, to name a few.

• The names Paulsen and Lincoln both contain 7 letters.
• Lincoln was killed in Ford Theater. Pat once owned a Ford.
• Lincoln was slain in the presence of his wife. Paulsen's wife nearly killed him one night (in their Lincoln!)
• John Wilkes Booth had 15 letters in his name. Patrick L. Paulsen has 15 letters in his name.
• John Wilkes Booth hid in a warehouse. Paulsen once lived in a warehouse.
• Lincoln's secretary warned him not to go to the theater. Paulsen has been warned many times to stay away from the theater.

Coincidence? Maybe. Destiny? Perhaps. You decide.

Joel Goodman: You and I first crossed paths in 1986 at the Gerald Ford "Humor and the Presidency" Symposium. In fact, I've taken your name in vain and quoted some of your lines from back then: "Attending the Gerald R. Ford Symposium on Humor in the Presidency is like attending an Ayatollah Khomeini symposium on the sexual revolution". At one point Ford said that providing comic relief in the midst of political campaigning is almost a humanitarian undertaking.

Patrick L. Paulsen: Ford said that? Well, he was the one that did it!

JG: So, this interview starts by acknowledging that you're a great humanitarian, because what you've been doing is adding a lot of humor in the midst of political campaigns. You've run three times!

PLP: I started in '68 as a write-in candidate. Ken Kregen, who organized Hands Across America and We Are the World, quotes me in his book when we arrived in a town with hundreds of people waiting for me. I said to him, "You know, Ken, I think maybe we could win this thing!" Then he went on to say something about "reality checks."

JG: In the materials I've read about you, you talk about being around before comedy routines were invented...

PLP: I've been doing comedy since before mud was invented. Kids ask me things such as, "What was comedy like before electricity" and "Do you have any Civil War jokes?" I started in the 50's (Pat changes chairs at this point while muttering, "Too much sex, all the time day and night sex... my back is killing me!"). I started college doing plays. Then I got in a little theater group called the Hobby Playhouse which was run by a blind guy, Mr. Reeves, who used to be part of the Charlie Chaplin tour across country. He'd hear me trying to tap dance and do impressions, and tell me that that's how they all started.

Later, I joined another theater group called the Ric-y-tic Players, which was dedicated to doing funny revues. We performed in a barn in Santa Rosa. We were funny but nobody showed up to watch us being funny. So we disbanded. I've come a long way... tonight, I'll be at the Roosevelt, and no one will come to see it.

Then I went into a trio with my brother and a gal named Joan Murray, and then I went to a single doing folk clubs and strip joints. There weren't as many places to work then as there are now.

JG: Jay Leno (Volume 5,

PLP: I liked a lot the early radio guys-- like Jack Benny, W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Edgar Bergen. I loved Bob and Ray. I really liked Victor Borge, because he used music and I use music in my act. He was a genuine idol. I loved him. In fact, when I was really young, I think I did one of his pieces, Phonetic Punctuation... not knowing that you shouldn't do that.

JG: The whole music-comedy connection is very interesting. You, the Smothers Brothers, Victor Borge, Steve Allen, Mark Russell... there are some interesting connections between music and comedy in terms of the rhythm, the timing.

PLP: I like to vary my performances so that I'm not just talking. Now I have a multi-media show with film in it, do the political stuff for about 20 minutes, and then do bad impressions, funny songs. I try to make sure that it flows.

JG: Your performing style is a paradox, an oxymoron. You have charisma, but it's an understated charisma involving dry wit and tongue-in-cheek humor. You help us to see the forest and the trees!

PLP: I was a forestry major at City College.

JG: A forestry major at City College??!!

PLP: I got to New York eventually... but this City College was the one in San Francisco! I had gone to watch a rehearsal of a play called "Night Must Fall"... and there were girls there. There weren't any girls in forestry at the time, so the play look ed like a lot more fun to me. I was just out of the Marine Corps and full of hormones... so I changed my major to drama. I never did graduate.

JG: Did your Marine Corps training help you in your comedic career at all? I know it helped Mark Russell.

PLP: I don't remember any of those guys being funny! Although looking back at it, funny things did happen. I remember being on the parade ground and the little guy next to me couldn't open the bolt on his rifle. The Drill Instructor came over and said , "You like to wrestle with that, don't you? Why don't you get down on the ground and wrestle with it!" So, here's this little guy next to me wrestling with his rifle on the ground, and if I laugh, I'm going to be down there, too. I brought blood to my lip trying not to laugh.

After boot camp, I ended up in Beijing, China guarding Japanese prisoners of war with the First Marine Division, Fifth Regiment, Second Battalion. There, I distinguished myself by not falling asleep on Guard Duty. We were surrounded by the communists bu t never attacked. Many people think I was captured by their troops who installed a metal plate in my head which keeps commanding me to run for President. I talk about how I killed ten men in World War II. See, I was smoking out behind the ammo dump one day...

JG: So, you didn't get a Purple Heart... but you did show up at the Purple Onion.

PLP: The Purple Onion was responsible for the Smothers Brothers. They were very funny. I went to see them there once (there were three then) and I went back stage and told them, "You guys ought to put a little comedy in your act." Tom remembers to thi s day my saying that. Eventually, they used a song called "Chop It" and found out it was mine, so they came to me, and I sold it to them. I didn't want to, but I sold it to them. I wrote some other songs for them... and when they got the show on television, they brought me on board.

Tommy and Dick are very loyal to people who were part of their entourage. I go back to places that gave me a start. Even when I was hot, I would go back to the Ice House in Pasadena to perform. Agents would say, "You can't do that", but I said, "They gave me a break, so I'm going back there to help them make some money."

JG: From your years with the Smothers Brothers on TV, do you have any highlights that jump out at you?

PLP: There were two writers with the Smothers Brothers from the beginning, who were originally Jack Benny writers. They were the guys I worked with primarily on the editorials. I'd take these editorials over to the Ice House and try them out. That's what made them successful at that time.

The first editorial I ever did I did all in double-talk, and they got a lot of inquiries requesting copies. Government-speak-- that's what it is. They got such a good reaction that I did about 15-- I talked about the war, litter, gun control.

JG: Your "picky, picky, picky..." routine has become part of our language now.

PLP: I started calling people "Hamburgers". I'd get letters from people named Hamburger resenting it when I'd say, "Why you Hamburger!" Pretty soon, that went to "Hot Dog," which eventually became "hot dogging it." I started it.

JG: Now I understand that you've been served with some paternity suits-- you're the comedic father of Steve Martin and Steven Wright.

PLP: Steve Martin is a great talent. He was a writer on the show as was Bob Einstein (who is now television star Super Dave). I'm sure those guys back then were writing "one for Pat, one for me, one for Pat, one for me...." Steven Wright is like a sophisticated Henny Youngman, doing one good one-liner after another.

Then there are the people who opened for me in the past who went on to become stars-- Don Novello (long before he did Saturday Night Live), Harry Anderson, Howie Mandell, Jim Carrey (who was 17 when he opened for me in Ottawa), Kenny Rogers, Jenny Jones, Paula Poundstone.

JG: So, the key to success is to be the opening act for Pat Paulsen.

PLP: If I had known they were going to be so successful, they never would have been on the bill with me. Climb over my back, will they! (laughs)

JG: In looking back and walking down memory lane, do you have any highlights from your political campaigns?

PLP: Being out at Bobby Kennedy's place... Kennedy had Tommy Smothers up against the wall saying, "You-you-you do support me, don't you?!" Another time, Kennedy was out in Oregon and saw a "Paulsen for President" sign in the audience. He stopped his speech and looked out and said, "I-I-I know this fellow Paulsen, and he's ruthless." I was at the Ambassador with a camera crew the night he was shot.

JG: There's a quote I've used from JFK over the years: "There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third." I know you're no Jack Kennedy... but you both did a lot with the third! As for future campaigns, do you have any plans for '96 at this time?

PLP: I did the best I ever did in '92. I got in four primaries. I didn't get into more, because they hold them on Tuesdays, and that's my bowling night. In New Hampshire, I got 800 votes; in Louisiana, I got 1500 votes; I went to Kansas and campaigned two days and got 5000 votes-- twice as many as David Duke, and then he dropped out; then I went to North Dakota and got more votes than Ross Perot-- 10% of the vote-- a delegate and a half. Of course, the Republicans took that away from me when the party made a last-minute change to a winner-take-all format.

JG: Why have you lost in the past?

PLP: I have made a complete assessment of the situation. It appears that I didn't get enough votes.

JG: Discuss your platforms.

PLP: Well, they're about yea big, and I don't wear them much anymore since they're out of style.

JG: Would you consider a third party candidacy with Ross Perot?

PLP: I'm glad to see that he's back at his old job-- modeling for MAD Magazine. Guys like him are great for comedians. Ross Perot is fun because he worships the very people he walks on. The Clinton administration is also a wealth of material.

JG: Do you have any advice for the President at this point?

PLP: Everybody says that Clinton lies a lot, that the President is incapable of telling the truth... and that the press is incapable of printing the truth. So what's the problem? They were thinking of putting Clinton on Mount Rushmore, but there wasn't room for two more faces.

As for other campaign issues... People shouldn't do drugs. There should be no pollution, no war, no hunger, and no poverty. There should be no crime. All of these things are very bad.

JG: Speaking of bad, what about the national deficit?

PLP: Just pay the whole thing off with a check. The check, of course, would bounce, but no one would get mad about it, since that's the one thing Americans understand-- bounced checks. Also, to deal with our weak economy, I hope to lower the unemployment rate by finding myself a job... and getting that pension!

I would do very well as President. I would not be meddling in the affairs of state. I'd be off golfing in Bermuda. The trouble with these guys that get in as President-- they think they have to do something. A President is just a figurehead, someone t o go to funerals. Let the Vice President disappear. I'd do the funerals. I'm more suited to be President than those other guys because I've been through it. I know what it's like-- bankruptcy. I'm more of an American.

If elected, I will keep the "In God We Trust" sign on the dollar bill, but I would add a list of people's names that I don't trust, like certain congressmen and a few others.

JG: In addition to "In God We Trust," do you have any other campaign slogans to sling around?

PLP: My slogan used to be "I'll lead America into the past" and "I've Upped My Standards, Now Up Yours." Now I've got a new slogan: "Dump the Hicks in '96." Here's a guy who smoked grass, chased after women, played the saxophone. You know, I had a so n who did all that, and I threw him out of the house.

JG: Going beyond slogans, let's see if you have any answers to other challenges...

PLP: As Richard Nixon once said, "Solutions are not the answer." Some of you may remember me as a bona fide presidential candidate in 1972. That was the year the majority of you decided that Richard Nixon would make a better President than I would.

JG: What about the cost of campaigning these days?

PLP: Running for President is pretty expensive, but I think I know some suckers, er, I mean, backers who might finance me.

JG: What about the middle class...

PLP: What middle class? There's only seven people left in the middle class... who cares about them?

JG: Foreign aid...

PLP: We should ask every country in the world to send us whatever they can.

JG: How about population control...

PLP: Each person has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great-grandparents, and so on-- clear proof that the population is shrinking.

JG: Health care...

PLP: I don't think we need to care for healthy people.

JG: War...

PLP: We should attack Canada. They haven't sent us a dime for all the chemicals we've given them over the years. Besides if we attack Canada, we're in the same time zone-- you don't have to stay up late to watch it on CNN.

JG: Crime in the streets...

PLP: We can solve this by eliminating a lot of streets-- we have too many already.

JG: Gun control...

PLP: Guns are not the problem. I think we should lock up all the bullets.

JG: The future...

PLP: Worrying about the future is a thing of the past. I don't think about it.

JG: I will ask you to think about the future now... I feel like I'm posing similar questions to those being asked of Colin Powell these days. Do you have a particular date that you'll be launching your campaign?

PLP: We're thinking about starting now! We did so well in '92 that I think we could actually win in '96. You know, you don't really need a President. To tell you the truth, the President just comes in and he's tinkering. When I win, I'll just go to Bermuda for 3 years, and then I'll come back... of course, I'll leave it in good hands. I'll be a decisive president-- probably....

We'll run a little bit to get on more ballots in smaller states. We tried to get on the ballot in California, but we were too late. We had to go to court. The judge was looking at our stuff, and he said, "Wait a minute! This man wants to attack Canada !" And I said, "Well, you know they've got two of our baseball teams now! And where do you think our geese go for the Summer?" He threw it out.

JG: In closing, let me throw this at you: Gerald Ford at the "Humor and the Presidency" Symposium also talked about the notion that "humor helps you to disagree without being disagreeable." Just like Norman Cousins talked about how humor could help heal the body, I think your humor has helped heal the body politic.

Pat Paulsen's Constitution I, the President of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish my unique brand of justice, insure against domestic violence, provide for the common defense and more so for the state-run prosecution, promote employment over welfa re, and secure the blessing of liberty to myself and my posterior, do ordain and enforce in any way I can this Constitution for Paulsen's United States of America. Article 1 Section 1. All legislative powers therein granted shall be rested in a Congress of my United States, which shall consist of a Senate, of Representatives, and of favored relatives. Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every few years or so from the states, except maybe not from some of those little eastern states that don't really have enough people to be worth the bother. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the age that he is too young to remember the sixties, nor is so old as he thinks he can boss me around. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states according to who deserves any say in the matter and who is willing to pay me enough. When vacancies happen in the Representatives from any state, the Executive Authority (that's my mother-in-law, folks), shall decide whoever she thinks ought to fill that spot. The House of Representatives shall choose a speaker, and that speaker had better be me or there's going to be heck to pay, and if there's any talk about impeachment, I'll be doing the talking, so you just get that idea out of your head right now, buster. Section 3. The Senate of my United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, except from certain midwestern states that always have those loud-mouthed boisterous Senators; they shall be entitled to one Senator until they learn to act like grown-ups in public. No person shall be a Senator who publicly admits to enjoying opera, who wears bow ties to Senate meetings or who drives Korean automobiles. The Vice President of my United States shall be Vice President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless I am sleeping or am fed up with all that filibustering. Article 2 Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in the President of my United States. He (I) shall hold office for the period of, say, four or five years, or for a period deemed "long enough yet not too long." Section 2. Successors to the Presidency shall be elected as follows: Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature allows, a number of electors equal to the number of Senators and Representatives presiding in said states, who shall hold general elections in their respective states for the purpose of determini ng the number of persons voting for candidates of the office, afterwhich said electors shall gather at a polling location chosen by Congress and then I will just tell them who's gonna be next in line. Section 3. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard and the Shriners. In addition, the President shall be head of the FBI, CIA, PTA, SPCA; he shall be King of Comedy, Captain of the Tea m, Emperor of Ice Cream, Grand Marshall of the Macy's Parade; he shall be empowered to appoint relatives to high places, to cut in line at the bank, to take more than ten (10) grocery items through the express line, to demand an end to elevator muzak. Article 3 Section 1. Judicial power of my United States shall be vested in the People's Court, under the guidance of one Judge Wapner, who shall ordain such lower courts as Divorce Court as is deemed necessary. Article 4 Section 1. Amendments to the Constitution shall be submitted, in writing, three (3) weeks in advance, in triplicate, to the office, department or specific dumpster appointed by the President. Done, in convention by the unanimous consent of all persons present, this fourth (4th) day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five and of the Independence of Paulsen's United States.

There are two very funny Pat Paulsen videos available for the ultimate fan. Pat Paulsen for President is a 51-minute documentary video of Pat's 1968 campaign trip through the U.S. As Pat says, "Just change a few names and the same thing is going on to day." Narrated by Henry Fonda, this highly acclaimed video will keep you laughing as we head into a presidential election year. Very funny stuff. You'll also love the dead-pan comic's Pat Paulsen's Greatest TV Bits, which features his Emmy-Award winni ng work on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and "Pat Paulsen's Half-A Comedy Hour." This 41-minute video contains some of Pat's most brilliantly executed mental lapses, painful pratfalls, and embarrassing gaffes. You'll love bits on "The Speed Reader, " "Self Defense," "Sex Education," "My Fascinating Life," and "Walking on Water." The segment on "The Humor Lecture" is worth the price of admission alone. This video is a fun one to use as an energizer in your programs and presentations.

For more info, contact HUMOResources at 518-587-8770 or email us at questions@HumorProject.com

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