Pratfalls of the Presidency

By Amy Wilentz

It was almost enough to take one back to the days when Gerald Ford fell off a plane ramp and Americans began wondering about their President. Had he forgotten to wear his football helmet back in college? Could he walk and chew gum at the same time? First, Ford nonchalantly knocked a tape recorder off the lectern while making a speech. Next, he and Edward Bennett Williams crashed into each other as the Washington attorney was leaving the podium. Once when a plate smashed to the floor, Ford's spokesman Bob Barrett took the microphone to tell the room, "That wasn't him. Believe me, it wasn't."

Last week's crowd, which numbered nearly 2,500, was gathered for the Gerald R. Ford Museum's Humor and the Presidency Symposium in Grand Rapids, likened by Comedian Pat Paulsen to the "Ayatullah Khomeini Symposium on the Sexual Revolution." The convocation, which included a comedy show and a banquet, marks the fifth anniversary of the museum where the Ford Administration's documents are stored -- "in a Dixie cup," according to Paulsen. "It's very exciting here," he said, "if you happen to be a monk." Among those joining the three days of discussions and routines: Art Buchwald, Robert Klein, Mark Russell, Mort Sahl and Chevy Chase, Cartoonists Jeff MacNelly and Berke Breathed, assorted presidential speechwriters and House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who broke a solemn vow against singing in public by serenading Betty Ford with When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. Muttered O'Neill as he shambled off the stage: "Who talked me into doing that?"

The event's most memorable moment: the Jerry and Chevy show, in which Ford, just for the fun of it, literally tripped up Chase, who made a career on Saturday Night Live out of poking fun at the President. Chase claims he has two injured vertebrae from re-enacting Ford's pratfalls. "Retribution," said Chase, "has been had." In spite of his professional injuries, Chase's tongue is still sharp. "Thank you for having me here," he told the man who pardoned Richard Nixon. "I'm kind of embarrassed (pause), and I hope you'll pardon me."

Gerald Warren, who was deputy press secretary during a particularly rancorous era, told the seminar, "It's an understatement to say there was very little humor in the Nixon White House, and much of what there was was inadvertent." For example: Nixon's comments to reporters at the Great Wall of China ("It's truly a great wall"), to a motorcycle policeman who had just broken his arm and leg in an accident at the head of a presidential motorcade ("How do you like your job?"), to French dignitaries gathered for the & funeral of Charles de Gaulle ("It's a great day for Paris"). Buchwald noted that the presidency always provides good material. "Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, 'I am not a crook.' Jimmy Carter says, 'I have lusted after women in my heart.' President Reagan says, 'I have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope.' "

The consensus at the symposium: self-deprecating humor is a President's best friend and weapon. "The chance to be seen as a warm, relaxed human being with a twinkle-in-the-eye approach to himself is just too good an opportunity to miss," said Bob Orben, a leading gag writer and author of many of Ford's best lines. "Humor reaches out, puts a warm, affectionate arm around an audience and says, 'I am one of you. I understand you.' If you can laugh together, you can vote together."

With reporting by William Mitchell/Grand Rapids