In case you missed it, Monday was a huge night for star-studded TV appearances.
First, President George Bush showed up on Deal or No Deal to joke about how he’s “thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings these days” — unaware at the time that his episode matched Deal’s lowest-rated Monday ever. I guess we should just be happy that Bush, appearing on the Iraq War Veterans edition, didn’t tell any contestants that they’d been stop-lossed.
Then Barack Obama stopped by The Daily Show to cater to common collegians, or the one faction of Pennsylvania that he already locked up. (Or at least thought he did.) It seems that Hillary Clinton’s approach — taking a whiskey shot and embarrassing her family — had more resonance with the campus crowd.
But by far, my favorite celebrity appearance of the night came from our very own Kal Penn, who guested on Conan to talk about two things: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and “Images of Asian Americans in the Media.” (I’ll let you guess which one is a Penn course.) During the interview, Kal mentioned that he doesn’t smoke weed and that he was formerly a vegetarian — two traits fundamentally antithetical to the best characteristics of Kumar. Dude sounds more like a professor than ever.
But seeing Kal on TV got me thinking: what other celebrities do I want to interim teach here at Penn? I’ve come up with a short wishlist — along with accompanying course titles — that I can only hope come true.
1. The Pope, “Hell Hath No Hot Dogs.” Catholicism’s Number One held mass at Yankee Stadium this past weekend, quickly becoming the only man to step foot on the infield who’s contractually obligated not to round the bases. (It’s a sex joke.) But if he can hold the attention of 60,000 strong on a Sunday, imagine his potential impact in a lecture hall. (And his English, while spotty, is way better than most of my TAs’.)
2. Ivanka Trump, “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.” No longer will Amy Gutmann be the femme fatale of my faculty-oriented daydreams. Replacing her will be Wharton grad Ivanka Trump, who like most of Donald Trump’s endeavors is only here because Trump screwed someone.
3. Jacques Chirac and Fidel Castro, “Wine, Cheese and Cigars.” Yale got Tony Blair for next semester, so Penn should reach out to other former leaders like Chirac and Castro. Theirs will be a gastronomical course where students will enjoy enough alcohol and tobacco to eventually curse out America and everything it stands for.
4. Maury Povich, “The Founding (You Are Not The) Fathers.” Another Penn grad, Povich will put a modern spin on a classic history course that includes frequent reference to founding father/homewrecker Benjamin Franklin. But Povich might prove more adept a professor than you might think; after all, he gave out multiple tests per day on his daytime talk show.
Tags: cigars, femme fatale, Kal Penn
An RSS feed of The Spin is available