Dan P. Quayle v. Murphy Brown
June 23, 2022 9:51 PM   Subscribe

“Why did we make fun of Dan Quayle for misspelling the word ‘potato’ when we should have made fun of him for arguments like this?” Mike and Sarah of the You're Wrong About podcast talk about how a real vice president blamed a fictional single mom for causing one of the most divisive events of the 1990s. The "P" stands for "potatoe."
posted by AlSweigart (9 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
If an hour-long podcast does not appeal: the show's contention is that Dan Quayle's clumsy attempt to blame 90s societal ills on the people being visited by those ills (including criticising Murphy Brown, a fictional character, for keeping her baby as a single mother) was an early attempt at working out the formula to appeal to "values voters", which has become a blight on the American political landscape.

(They do also point out that it's not entirely clear what Dan Quayle thought Murphy Brown should do, because he was also "pro-life", and yet didn't criticise the also fictional father for leaving, a telling omission. They also, delightfully, report that the TV show took news coverage of this scandal and folded it into the next season, where their fictional Dan Quayle said all the same things, but about the character, not the show.)
posted by Merus at 2:27 AM on June 24, 2022 [1 favorite]


Oh man. I was like 7 when this happened; I don't even think I understood where babies come from; I'd definitely never watched an episode of Murphy Brown; and even I knew that DQ and his ilk were being ridiculous here. When the juicebox gang has more sense than the Vice President....

it's not entirely clear what Dan Quayle thought Murphy Brown should do
At least in my neck of the woods, "family values" people were pretty upfront that they thought Murphy Brown should deliver the baby and then give the child up for adoption by a Good Christian Two-Parent Family.

Five or so years later, in middle school civics/econ, we had a personal finance simulation where you drew a backstory out of a hat and had to find a job and apartment from the newspaper classifieds, set up a budget, learned to write checks, etc. It was probably the most practical thing we did all year. Unfortunately our teacher got in trouble with someone's parents, because one of the backstories was thinly veiled Murphy Brown and OH THE PEARL-CLUTCHING HORROR OF SINGLE PARENTHOOD. Luckily, Mr. B pointed out that the single parent might also be a widow/widower with a young child, and we were allowed to go on with our simulation. Well played, Mr. B.
posted by basalganglia at 5:00 AM on June 24, 2022 [5 favorites]


I do remember Bart Simpson having to write "It's 'potato', not 'potatoe'" on the blackboard ....
posted by mbo at 5:29 AM on June 24, 2022 [3 favorites]


This is one of my favorite You're Wrong Abouts. James Danforth Quayle has had an arc--from being an airhead with good hair, widely considered one of the dumbest members of Congress, to being George H.W. Bush's running mate ('Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy'), picked to attract social conservatives who thought (accurately) that H.W. was a mainline Protestant who didn't particularly care about abortion, to being even by the standards of the office a very inconsequential vice president, to being H.W.'s family values attack dog (a position for which he wasn't very well-qualified, see above), to (long pause) being the guy who told fellow Hoosier himbo Mike Pence he couldn't overturn an election.
posted by box at 5:42 AM on June 24, 2022 [6 favorites]


❤️
posted by theora55 at 7:12 AM on June 24, 2022


To this day, I do a double-take when I write "potatoes". Thanks dumbass. I'd completely forgotten about the Murphy Brown . . . controversy, for lack of a word that better describes my complete and utter contempt for someone who has time on their hands to worry about fictional characters while involved in federal government.
posted by yerfatma at 10:22 AM on June 24, 2022 [1 favorite]


I've also heard from more conspiratorial quarters that picking an obviously dumb VP was Bush's insurance policy for not getting impeached in the Iran-Contra scandal...
posted by blue shadows at 11:07 AM on June 24, 2022




I mean people definitely also made fun of him for this.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:35 PM on June 24, 2022


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