Imagine Mike Murphy’s excitement when he received a personal letter, on recycled paper, from Jane Fonda. “Dear Michael, I have a humongous favor to ask you,” the former Barbarella wrote to Murphy, the Republican media whiz who worked on the Alexander and Dole campaigns. It seems that Fonda chairs a campaign run by Husband Ted’s Turner Foundation to reduce teen pregnancy in Georgia. “We know that hope is the best contraceptive [!!!], so we are replicating programs that help young people and their parents start small businesses,” she writes. The humongous favor she asks is that Murphy attend a premiere of the movie Batman and Robin in Atlanta. It seems that the stars of the movie will all be overseas, so Ms. Fonda is hoping the stars of previous Batman movies might make it to Atlanta for a Batman reunion.
Ms. Fonda makes clear that she knows her husband’s hometown is a bit of a cow pasture: “This is a big deal in Atlanta which hasn’t had glamorous premieres since Gone with the Wind.” Indeed, Atlanta is so starved for glamor that, as Fonda adds, “the town went wild!” at last year’s Twister premiere. She promises that Murphy won’t have to be stuck there long: “You would be out the next day . . . back to wherever you wanted to be.”
Murphy responded on paper that does not appear to be recycled. “It sounds like a cool event. And I am flattered by the offer to fly me to Atlanta,” he says. But the problem is that this Mike Murphy was never in any Batman movies. That was the other Michael Murphy, the actor. “I’m tempted to show up anyway, ” the GOP Murphy continues, “but it would probably be a mistake. I’d be standing there with all the Batman cast members, and somebody might notice that I wasn’t in any of the movies. I could tell ’em I was the guy in the penguin suit or something, but we better play it safe. And who knows what would happen if I had a few too many glasses of free champagne. Whitewater or Newt or Hanoi could come up, and well, let’s just say it’s probably best for everybody that I decline.”
Another great meeting of the minds goes by the boards.
