Callers Find Quayle on a Roll

Last week, Dan Quayle launched a stinging attack on the “cultural elite” of this nation, who sit in “newsrooms, sitcom studios and faculty lounges across America” and “try to mock” decent, moral Americans.

Rarely has a single speech so electrified a nation.

The phone banks at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were immediately flooded with calls from concerned citizens.

Here are some of them:

Caller No. 1: Good for this Dan Quayle guy! He should run for public office!

Office of the Vice President: Officially, Dan Quayle has been the vice president of the United States since January, 1989. For reasons of national security, however, it was decided to keep this a secret until the country was ready for the news.

Caller No. 2: We have a problem. Our 14-year-old daughter, who last year won the Miss Congeniality Award from her 4-H Club, this year has decided to get a tattoo, shave her head, and move to Hollywood to become a cocktail waitress. Where did we go wrong?

OVP: You probably let her watch “Murphy Brown.” That show has done more to ruin America than did “Gilligan’s Island.”

(Only Thurston Howell III and Lovie were married, for instance. And how come the Professor could fashion a color TV from two coconuts, but couldn’t manage to build a church?)

Your daughter probably saw the episode in which Murphy gets a hickey from a man she is not married to and then decides to get a tattoo, shave her head and move to Hollywood to become a cocktail waitress.

Members of the cultural elite have tried to mock Vice President Quayle, saying that he doesn’t know Murphy Brown is a fictional character.

Mr. Quayle replies: “I am well aware Murphy Brown is fiction. But in real life she is played by Candice Bergen, who thinks she is better than the rest of us just because her father was a big-deal ventriloquist!”

Caller No. 2: But what can we do about our daughter?

OVP: You must appeal to her basic moral values, which have been the bedrock of this nation.

Caller No. 2: And if that doesn’t work?

OVP: Chain her to her bed.

Caller No. 3: Hello, I’m a long-time listener, first-time caller and I’d like to know what the Office of the Vice President suggests we do about sex education. My daughter is 22 and will be coming home from college soon, and I’d like to know when somebody should sit down and talk to her about the birds and the bees, if you catch my meaning.

OVP: First, let us quote directly from the vice president’s speech, when he denounced “the cultural elite” for “handing out condoms in the schools or distributing sexual propaganda to our third- and fourth-graders.”

A 22-year-old girl does not need to be exposed to filth. She gets enough of that from watching “This Week With David Brinkley.”

Your daughter will have plenty of time for sex education after she gets married.

Caller No. 4: I took my two children to a movie last week, and I had to walk out in disgust. I was never so embarrassed in my life. How come Donald Duck never wears pants? Mickey always does!

OVP: We quote from the vice president’s speech of last week: “The cultural elite in Hollywood and elsewhere may have a lot of money, they may have a lot of influence, but we have the power of ideas, the power of our convictions and the power of our beliefs. And we shall carry the day.”

And while this does not answer your specific question, I am authorized to tell you that the vice president has long wondered why Goofy speaks English and Pluto barks, considering they are both dogs.

Also: What is the exact relationship between Chip and Dale?

Caller No. 5: My wife, Emma, my boys Luke and John, my girls Felicity, Simplicity and Perseverance are just plain, simple folk. We heard the vice president speak and believe in him 100%.

We are wondering this: Would it help if we just went ahead and started shooting the cultural elite right now? Or should we wait for a sign?

OVP: Let us keep in mind the words of our vice president: “We defend the rights of all Americans. We are for compassion and tolerance. We are, after all, commanded to love our neighbor. But we do not believe that being compassionate and tolerant means abandoning our standards of right or wrong, good or bad.”

Caller No. 5: So what does that mean?

OVP: Wait for a sign. And keep your powder dry.