MARK RUSSELL COMEDY SPECIAL (TV)

Summary

One in this series of comedy/musical specials featuring political satirist Mark Russell. In this program, Russell entertains an audience in-the-round at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Buffalo, NY, with irreverent song parodies and barbed monologues inspired by current events. Topics of satire include the following: the divorce of Donald and Ivana Trump; President George Bush's trip to a drug conference in Colombia; Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry's drug-related arrest; a bishop in Albany who claims that New York Governor Mario Cuomo will go to hell for his position on abortion rights; the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, which resulted in President Manuel Noriega's arrest; the fiscal 1991 U.S. budget; the annual State of the Union address; the ephemeral nature of America's so-called "peace dividend"; the "death of communism"; and the 1989 revolt in Romania which resulted in the execution of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Acquisition and cataloging of this program was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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