RICHARD NIXON: 1913-1994 : FOR MORE YEARS : From ‘-Gates’ to ‘Checkers,’ He Made a Lasting Impact on Pop Culture

The question posed to the two shoppers was, do you recognize these quotations?

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I am not a crook.

We could do that, but it would be wrong.

Expletive deleted.

No, said 28-year-old Kimm Leavitt of Fountain Valley. Dorothy Ziebel, Leavitt’s mother, rolled her eyes.

“That’s incredible,” she said. “Those were like guaranteed punch lines back then: ‘We could have dessert, but it would be wrong.’ Everybody was saying it. Everybody knew what it meant.”

“Nobody I know my age knows about that,” said Leavitt. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Could this be true? Could Richard Nixon’s pervasion of popular culture, so overwhelming in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, be drawing to a close?

Next century, will they stop calling every Washington scandal Something-gate? Will winners stop using the two-fisted, overhead, V-for-victory salute? Will the photo of Elvis and Nixon at the White House fade from view?

“I think it was all pretty ephemeral, to tell the truth,” said UC Irvine Prof. Jon Wiener, a specialist in recent United States history.

“I think it was a time when he represented everything bad about the war in Vietnam. There were all the off-Broadway plays, the songs, the cartoons, but that seems long ago and far away. . . . For people who grew up with Nixon, he was an unforgettable part of their lives. For those who didn’t, he’s just another dead President.”

If so, they won’t know what they missed. Richard Nixon shower heads and switch plates, Nixon candles and Ping-Pong paddles. Dick Nixon watches (pre-digital, pre-quartz). Nixon comeback T-shirts (“He’s tan, he’s rested, he’s ready”).

Comedy albums, including one that set famous news conferences (“You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore”) to music and a laugh track.

Nixon on the “Tonight” show, joking with Jack Paar and playing the piano. Nixon on “Laugh-In” (“Sock it to me? “). Nixon impersonated by Rich Little and Dan Aykroyd (“Let me say this about that.”). Nixon mocked by Rowan & Martin, even Sonny and Cher. Nixon savaged by the Smothers Brothers.

Nixon parties, called to guffaw at Nixon’s “Checkers” speech or his Watergate tapes. Hate-filled portraits and caricatures by counterculture artists. Reverence-filled portraits by Norman Rockwell.

“In popular culture, he became a metaphor,” said Mort Sahl, whose comic social commentary spanned the entire Nixon period.

“People looked at him, and he reminded them of their dark, pragmatic side,” he said. “The audience I dealt with for years, they could never believe that Nixon was innocent or Reagan was guilty. I was on the ‘Merv Griffin Show,’ and I maintained that (Nixon) had been assassinated as much as Kennedy, but not with a gun. The audience booed me. That’s how strongly they felt about him.

“They think of Nixon as the Marx Brothers; you hire them and they set out to tear up your house,” he said. “Reagan was the Three Stooges; they tear up your house, too, but they try to do good.”

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Stephen E. Ambrose, professor of history at the University of New Orleans and author of the three-volume biography “Nixon,” believes some of Nixon’s effects on pop culture will be lasting.

“ Smoking gun, that’s permanent. Smoking gun wasn’t invented then, but its meaning (irrefutable proof of guilt) became solidified,” he said. “The word - gate and its overuse, that’s permanent. Every little scandal is going to be a ‘gate.’ ”

And one item is sure to survive, he said, because of its overwhelming irony.

“That famous photo with Elvis (and Nixon in the White House) about which so much has been written and can be,” Ambrose said. “Elvis, he was undoubtedly looped. And he’s there with Mr. Stuffed Shirt who was 55 years old before he ever smelled marijuana, whose idea of heavy drug use was two martinis.

“I doubt he ever heard an Elvis song,” he said. “His interest in pop culture was zero. He hated avant-garde. Any change in social life, he disapproved of. I’m now 60 years old, and I think what’s happening in the American family is just terrible. Old people always think that, but Nixon thought that when he was 12 years old.”

The only part of pop culture Nixon embraced was baseball and football, Ambrose said. “That was the one place where Nixon was Mr. Joe America. He really would spend his Sunday afternoons watching football and drinking beer.” All other pop culture was alien to him, he said.

But if Nixon eschewed pop culture, pop culture embraced him, if only to deride him. The nastiest shots came from popular music.

Neil Young in 1970 after National Guardsmen fired on Kent State students: “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming / We’re finally on our own / This summer I hear the drumming / Four dead in Ohio.”

John Lennon in 1971: “All I want is the truth / Just gimme some truth / No short-haired, yellow-bellied son of tricky Dicky / Is gonna Mother Hubbard, soft-soap me / With just a pocketful of hope.”

Country Joe and the Fish in 1972: “It’s tricky Dicky from Yorba Linda, hip, hip, hooray / He walks, he talks, he smiles, he frowns / Just like a human can / He’s tricky Dicky from Yorba Linda / A genuine plastic man, oh yeah / A genuine plastic man.”

Yoko Ono in 1972 (with doctored photo of Nixon and Mao Tse-tung dancing nude): “There may not be much difference / Between Chairman Mao and Richard Nixon / If we strip them naked.”

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Nixon made his way into fine art (although critics were divided on that point) when the opera “Nixon in China” premiered in Houston in 1987. He appeared far more often in less flattering stage productions off-Broadway, like “The Last Testament of Richard Nixon” by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone and “An Evening With Richard Nixon” by Gore Vidal.

Television, reflecting the “generation gap” that was resulting in violent street and campus confrontations, went after Nixon as an image more than a man, said Robert M. Batscha, president of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City.

“Nixon was convenient because he was President,” he said. “But the point is, the majority wanted someone who had that approach to resolving issues, and shows like ‘Laugh-In’ and ‘Smothers Brothers’ very much reflected the New Generation, as we used to call ourselves. The Smothers Brothers were considered to be, if not threatening, at least annoying to the social order.”

Nixon’s real effect on the broadcast culture was on the news side, Batscha said. “What happened with Watergate and Vietnam caused them to be less trusting of politicians and what they said, and that’s had a lasting effect. The whole press was changed. They became more confrontational, more investigative.”

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At least one man will be working to keep Nixon alive in pop culture. Impersonator Little says he will continue to impersonate Nixon in performance, although he will wait a respectful one month to resume.

“It’s hard to say how long I’ll be doing that, but certainly I would think for another 10 years,” Little said.

Besides, Nixon is so easy to do, he added. “All you had to do was shake your jowls and say, ‘I am not a crook.’ Even little babies could do Richard Nixon because they all have the chubby cheeks.”