Gerald Ford is the only person to serve as president without being elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. He was handed a poisoned chalice and for many he's only remembered as the butt of Saturday Night Live. But there's much more to his story.Don's guest is Professor Kathryn Brownell, author of 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News.Edited by Tim Arstall, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.
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The 1970s weren't all bad news. At least there was usually something decent on TV. And on April 17, 1976, surprised late-night viewers tuned into NBC and saw President Gerald Ford standing in the Oval Office in front of the flag, staring gun barrels straight into the camera, wearing a somewhat glazed expression as he announced, "'Live from New York! It's Saturday night!'
Cut to NBC Studio 8H, where a young Chevy Chase, the breakout star of SNL, launched into his impersonation of President Ford as a klutz, who, if he wasn't falling over or fumbling a glass of water onto himself, was just about to. Real-life President meets exaggerated parody, the Commander-in-Chief deciding, if you can't beat a joke, then join it. Well, for one line at least. Hello, listeners.
Great to have you with us. I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit. Today, we progress onward with our President series as we now reach number 38. President Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan. R is for Rudolph, something central to understanding the boy who became the man. More on that later. Ford's abbreviated presidency lasted from 1974 to 1977.
During these years, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run was released. Remember that well because I'm from New Jersey. Blockbuster movies, The Godfather Part II, Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It was America's 200th birthday, the bicentennial in 1976.
Unfortunately concurrent with a stagnant economy and generally diminished morale, thanks to Vietnam and a public hangover from Nixon and Watergate. All this was the backdrop for the Ford presidency. Ford was a moderate Republican, a respected, long-serving member of the House of Representatives for 12 terms, 24 years.
Ford is most famously, of course, known as the man who replaced Nixon's vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, and then the president himself after Nixon resigned. Thus, Ford becomes the only U.S. president to serve unelected by the American people.
He is an enigmatic figure in the presidential pantheon, for reasons we'll decipher today with Professor Catherine Brownell of Purdue University, who is the director of the Center for American Political History and Technology, author of the book 24-7 Politics, Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News.
Professor Brownell was the guest for our Watergate episode number 139. Invite you to listen to that. And greetings, Katie. Welcome back to American History Hit.
Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be back.
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