Al Franken Mines Comedy Past In Bid For Google Fiber (VIDEO)

Drawing on footage from his decades in comedy, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has joined the politicians bidding for their constituencies to test Google's high-speed broadband fiber networks.

Franken jokingly credited Google's search engine as the reason he was able to run for the Senate instead of continuing to serve as "The Duluth Answer Man," a character he played in TV spots promoting the city in the 1980s (not "SNL" skits, as previously reported).

Franken didn't go quite as far as the mayors of Topeka, Kansas or Sarasota, Florida -- who temporarily changed their cities' names to "Google" and "Google Island," respectively -- but he's the biggest name so far to publicly angle for the search giant's Web development project. Other politicians, like Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), are vying for the company's investment behind the scenes.

WATCH Franken's pitch:

Franken's ad isn't the first pitch to Google from the Duluth area, either. It was posted in response to a satirical sketch from the Duluth Mayor's Office in which a fake mayor promises to name all boys born in Duluth "Google Fiber."

Comments

[GOODinPDX]

12:26 AM on 04/21/2010

Hopworks Gigabit IPA is now open source! Download the recipe to brew your own! http://bit­.ly/9nPiTC http://bit­.ly/bsqoH4 #pdxfiber

[HopeGrenade]

12:11 PM on 03/16/2010

Man, how is it that everything Al Franken gets exposure for is awesome? He needs to go pick up some prostitute­s or something.

[Pixel Ink]

07:51 PM on 03/23/2010

Asheville has Andie MacDowell, so throw in the towel Deluth! http://www­.youtube.c­om/group/g­oogleavl#p/a/3/h5m3_­M8RqOw

[Littlewords]

11:07 AM on 03/16/2010

Al is so clever. Yet, this pales compared to Al Franken the roving reporter on the road skit with his Sony KB-2000 replete with parabolic antenna broadcasti­ng back to SNL news studio from some far corner of the globe....a­h, the good 'ol days of SNL. Below is the transcript of such an episode with him reporting back to Dennis Miller (who since lost his political way)...

http://snl­transcript­s.jt.org/9­0/90aupdat­e.phtml

[tomnobombadil]

01:12 AM on 03/16/2010

Al is so cool.
I tried to catch him when he was on AirAmerica whenever I could, especially his NY shows. It was some of the best AirA had back when. What a great time that was.
Go Al

[hibeam]

10:46 PM on 03/15/2010

Hey Al when are you going to bring back Air America? We all enjoyed watching that thing bleed money until even George could not prop it up anymore. Come on back, this time we promise someone will listen in. We promise.

[hibeam]

10:44 PM on 03/15/2010

Al Franken was a comedian before he became a democrat. Usually it works the other way round.

[ReMarker]

11:22 AM on 03/15/2010

Minnesota, as good as Frankin is, he can't dilute the negative Bachman brings to your state. Good luck with overcoming a Crusador from the Dark Ages.

[MNmommy]

11:25 AM on 03/15/2010

MBachmann represents her district, not the State, thank goodness!

[pecosdog]

12:33 PM on 03/15/2010

No state is immune from guanoloco areas. Here in New Mexico, a state with all we sent to Washington having a D after their names, we have "little Texas" and Roswell. California has fresno. Colorado has colorado springs. Arizona has Arizona.Ut­ah has Utah. Kansas has Kansas. South Carolina..­. well you get the point.

[Jetling]

03:20 PM on 03/15/2010

Fresno? Nobody goes to Fresno...

[HopeGrenade]

12:13 PM on 03/16/2010

Jersey has...most of Jersey.

[MNmommy]

11:16 AM on 03/15/2010

Hooboy, the irrelephan­t troIIs really desp!se Franken, that much is clear.

[PubicOption]

09:12 AM on 03/15/2010

Alright! It's so nice to see that Al's sense of humor is recovering­. He had to tone it down so much (and for so long) during his Senate run. He was advised to lay low as an incoming Senator. I saw him interviewe­d after finally being named the victor -- the television interviewe­r asked if he was still going to be funny, and he said, "no, frankly I've lost my sense of humor through this whole process."

Anyways, nice to see he can still crack us up. Welcome back, Senator Franken!

[cybersense]

01:48 AM on 03/15/2010

Actually, Sen Franken still has his sense of humor. Whew!

[cybersense]

01:47 AM on 03/15/2010

Speaking of clowns. Pawlenty just took money from the VETS license plates fund. He just doesn't get it does he? He also took funding away from organizati­ons that makes Minnesota money. What a dip.

[TakeSake]

01:19 PM on 03/15/2010

This is the story to watch while the Timinator runs for President.

[lyn26ne]

11:19 PM on 03/14/2010

I liked Al on SNL but now? Not so much.

[Cranbury Rd]

05:56 AM on 03/15/2010

OMG aren't people allowed to grow up in this phuckin country!

[lizmckenzie55]

08:51 AM on 03/15/2010

He's all grown up now!

[DavePalen]

10:37 PM on 03/14/2010

Al Franken is THE circus clown of the Senate. He stole the election (ballots were found in a poll watchers car). He is a mean man.

[GSR]

11:00 PM on 03/14/2010

Minnesota has a rigorous and transparen­t electoral appeals process. Norm Coleman vigourousl­y litigated the results through various judicial stages including a judicial panel appointed by Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty. That panel's unanimous decision was followed by another emphatical­ly unanimous decision from the Minnesota Supreme Court in favour of Frankin. The process was never rushed and took 6 months to complete.
If you believe that Senator Frankin stole the election then you would have to believe that 9 senior judges colluded in an electoral fraud.
The story of the 32 absentee ballots is flat wrong.The 32 ballots were not riding around in Election Director, Cindy Reichert's car boot. That rumor was started by Coleman's attorney Fritz Knaak and was picked up by the WSJ. In fact they were held under lock and key between election day and the count. Of the 32 misplaced votes 16 were for Franken, 7 were for Coleman and the rest went to independen­ts.

[DavePalen]

11:22 PM on 03/14/2010

How many were fraudulent ACCORN votes? Minnesota doesn't require ID's to vote.

[cybersense]

01:43 AM on 03/15/2010

You need to get your facts straight buddy. I live here and paid very close attention. I even watched those court proceeding­s live. Coleman had nothing to win on. Period. He wasted our time, and he actually was the "clown" in that event. Made everyone here mad as heck, and that included both parties. We don't like Coleman. Guess where Franken was during this circus? At the senate, making sure he was informed and staying aware of the problems that existed for Minnesota without pay. Yep. So, perhaps we know why he is now liked here.

[HeightsMark]

10:27 PM on 03/14/2010

I now get an average of 37 viruses a day, I spend over $50 a month for antivirus for my business on top of a provider that swears they eliminate all viruses. I’ve had to rebuild a computer every other month for the last year after virus attacks. If BHO wants to make the ‘net better, sic the FBI,IRS,CI­A,DHS and every other alphabet agency on the bastards that spawn them. I say public hangings and he has my vote.

[GSR]

10:36 PM on 03/14/2010

Time to get a Mac

[Troy Peterson]

11:01 PM on 03/14/2010

I agree with GSR... get a MAC.

[Cranbury Rd]

06:01 AM on 03/15/2010

X3 you dominated wussy!

[pointyheadprodigy]

09:54 PM on 03/14/2010

Good to see Al still has his sense of humor. It would be a terrible thing to lose. You go Senator!