By Mark Fischenich
Free Press Staff Writer
MANKATO
August 01, 2008 12:17 am
—
It was a situation a political candidate like Al Franken typically would try to avoid — surrounded by a group of people who’d never heard of him and definitely would not be providing any votes on Nov. 4.
But Franken, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Norm Coleman, agreed to the stop at Bethany Lutheran College during a three-hour campaign visit to Mankato Thursday.
Take Hugo Wen, one of the production crew in the Bethany Lutheran College television studio, when he was asked his impression of Franken.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know him,” Wen said.
The story was the same for most of the crew for “Between The Lines,” a political interview show that Franken agreed to appear on. The show, which appears more than 40 times a year on Charter Cable and several other cable systems around Minnesota, is typically staffed by Bethany students.
Those students are on summer break. So when the Franken campaign agreed last week to do the show on Thursday, Wen and a couple of dozen other Chinese students were asked to volunteer to as camera operators, sound mixers, technical directors and lighting specialists.
After a month-long visit from their university near Hong Kong, the students felt ready to give it a try.
“I want to pick up the opportunity,” Wen said. “... It’s exciting.”
While the crew was clueless about the unusual past of this particular American politician, “Between the Lines” host Al Travis wasn’t.
“Live from Mankato, it’s Saturday niiiiiiiight!” Travis shouted to open the show.
Travis a Blue Earth resident who started “Between the Lines” about 9 years ago, back when it was on only the Fairmont cable access channel, back when the hot political topic was the Fairmont City Council’s new leash law for cats.
Coming back from a break, Travis had Franken — a former Saturday Night Live writer, political author and radio host — pretend to be finishing a long list of autographs for the host.
“OK, for Chuck, my golf buddy,” Travis said, acting like he didn’t know they were back on the air.
Next came the rapid-fire-questions segment (Franken’s favorite movie is Dr. Strangelove, his first car was an 11-year-old Buick LeSabre).
Then came the political part, which lasted most of the show and which was why Franken was on hand. Despite its humble beginnings, Travis’ show now reaches a million homes around the state.
Franken talked about why he was running (doesn’t like the country’s direction, wants to work toward universal health care and energy independence, hopes to help restore America’s standing in the world); about Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s TV ad attacking Franken’s racier writings (“Norm Coleman doesn’t want to talk about the issues because he has such a terrible record.”); about his energy proposals (would bring more transparency to the oil futures market, sell off part of the Strategic Petroleum reserve to boost supply, invest in renewable energy research and energy conservation).
Travis was worried that Franken, the candidate, would be too serious. But there were plenty of lighter moments. Franken, talking about his USO tours of Iraq and Kuwait, said he kept politics out of the shows, offering his standard joke about the quality of military food: “I’ve had five MREs and none of them seemed to have an exit strategy.”
Or when Travis asked him whether his best experience in the entertainment industry was his work in TV, radio or movies.
“This is my favorite show biz experience,” Franken said.
After the show wrapped up, Travis said he thought the interview had gone well. Bethany Studio Director Chris Johnson was also pleased, saying his emergency fill-in crew did well despite one camera operator’s minor confusion about “right” and “left” when getting instructions from the director.
And the Chinese students, who are leaving Bethany today for their return to United International College in Zhuhai, applauded and smiled. They’d learned plenty during their month in Mankato.
“Most of these students had never been in a TV station before,” Johnson said. “Some of them had never operated a camera.”
“Between the Lines” airs daily at 8 and 1 — both a.m. and p.m. — on Charter channel 14. The Franken interview will begin airing Monday.
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