Yeah, I fucked that one up (thanks, Wikipedia ! :)) - absentee ballots were granted earlier than that (1942 apparently) but in my defence the process wasn’t really practical then and it was revised a number of times, including 1986.
I’m re-watching the series yet again and I ran across one of my favorite quotes in Season 1- Episode 9 last night. After a particularly unpleasant press briefing, as she is leaving the press room and in a low tone, CJ utters- "Set fire to the room, do it now" to her assistant. I love my CJ!
Isn’t this pretty much the ending of Working girl?
Just to note:
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When Russell was selected as Vice President Bartlet’s MS was public knowledge. Hoynes resigned in disgrace during Bartlet’s second term, and the MS was disclosed during his first term.
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Fitzwallace retired not long after Russell became President, in any case, so it’s not a stretch that he was about ready for retirement anyway. But Fitz never showed any serious interest in politics. The consensus during the VP replacement storyline was Bartlet probably could’ve gotten Berryhill or another person of his choosing, but only “after a fight” in which they had a knock-down drag out affair and Bartlet had to curry public opinion against the GOP for keeping the country without a Vice President. Bartlet wanted a speedy, uncontroversial selection of a replacement VP.
Leo: Do you wanna mock people, or do you wanna let me talk to Toby?
Josh: I wanna mock people.
With all the TWW expertise here I have to wonder if there aren’t any fellow Testytoad orphans here…
My first favorite is when all the staffers & Zoey take Charlie to a bar in Mr. Willis of Ohios. “Now I’m having fun” was classic.
Leo telling LJM “when we opened a can of whupass on you at Yorktown.”
Josh Lyman: I’m just sayin’ if you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for a beer.
Donna Moss: [stands up] If you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for red lights.
The scene where POTUS goes yard on the Dr. Laura-like character.
A couple of additional thoughts…
The scene where Josh gets in over his head on the message board was based on the real-life experience of Sorkin when he went on website televisionwithoutpity.com (with the same results).
IMHO the show jumped the shark when the MS line was brought in. Not because of the legal issues, but simply the tenor of the show. I think that for a lot of viewers besides myself it was our own escapist version of Camelot that the JFK presidency evoked. Once they started showing our heroes in trouble (whether health or self-induced legal problems) the feeling of the show changed. There were some good shows once that arc began, but overall it no longer had the feel of allowing us to indulge in seeing people in white hats actually working in politics.
Bumped.
Joshua Malina (Will Bailey) is cohosting a TWW podcast that will go through every episode: 'The West Wing Weekly' Podcast Promises To Break Down Every Episode : NPR
I know it’s an old thread but here’s the scene.
Bartlett was revealed to have MS pretty early in the show’s run, in Season 1’s episode “He Shall from Time to Time” which was the twelfth episode of the series. That’s when he told Leo. It’s hard to claim the show jumped the shark at that point.
Bartlett: *“Strictly speaking… I’ve conquered your country without the paperwork.” *
(If only it were that easy, Sorkin.)
The episode where an elderly Jewish woman on a White House tour recognised a painting that used to belong to her family and was stolen by the Nazis. CJ and the art expert researched the painting’s history and ended up giving it back to her.
The capital-punishment episode where Bartlet is agonizing over whether or not to grant a pardon.
The episode where an old conservative SCOTUS justice dies, and they persuade an old liberal justice to step down so that Bartlet can appoint both a great younger liberal and a great younger conservative at the same time.
The episode where Charlie tangles with the snippy keeper of the White House archives and storage rooms.
The episode where Josh cockily volunteers to do the press briefing and totally screws it up.
The episode where several of the WH staff get lost in rural Indiana.
Just about any Lord John Marbury episode.
Here’s a PBS documentary on wildlife corridors, as mentioned on one of those Big Block of Cheese Day episodes: Wild Ways | NOVA | PBS
In the course of my re-watching chronologically via Netflix, I just saw the 1st Ainsley Hayes episode.
I was really impressed with how Sorkin managed to give his characters (Sam and Ainsley) opposite sides of an issue (a federal education bill) and make both of them sound well-reasoned. It would be nice if all real-life debates were so.
A few episodes back, Josh was in bed recovering from his gunshot wound, and haranguing CJ about a story concerning Cal Tech physicists, but CJ kept referring to them as “psychics”. She managed to convince Josh that she would of course never make that mistake during her briefing.
Cut to the briefing, where CJ says "Cal Tech psychics said that blah blah … that should probably be “physicists”.
Cut to Josh, banging his head on his headboard.
…an entertaining exchange…
“How would you not show North on the top?”
“By showing it on the bottom – like this.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s freaking me out!”
The scene where Donna gets the Navy guy to smash a $500 ash tray so that he can show her it splits into only two pieces, so that there aren’t glass particles getting into people’s eyes or all over the deck in an emergency.
“We live a slightly different life out there, and it costs a little more.”
“I can’t believe you broke a $500 ash tray.”
“Yeah, I kinda wish I hadn’t done that.”
There are many priceless moments, but the one that springs to me right now is the chief legal counsel telling his assistant that his voice recorder is stuck on “record”, then Jeb barging in saying “by the way I need your opinion on whether what I did constitutes a massive fraud on the national electorate” (or somesuch).
Cue pause, stare a The President with an exceedingly tired look in his eye, then smashing his gizmo to pieces with a paper weight without saying a word.
The Obama White House actually instituted Big Block of Cheese Day. Had this been a thing before Aaron Sorkin (and Andrew Jackson, obviously.)
It was a gavel given to his dad.
CJ: A seqwet pwan to fight infwation???!