# Will Ferrell Backs Out of Ronald Reagan Alzheimer's Comedy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 29, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443 "2016-04-29T19:12:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/21 "2016-04-30T14:37:23Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > I think you’re misremembering the skit. Reagan would appear like a genial grandpa with the public, but each time he was with just staff, he became a sharp commanding presence. No, you’re thinking of the Phil Hartman as Reagan skit. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/22 "2016-04-30T14:50:59Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Proof number 1,387,967 that liberals are hateful, mean spirited people that anyone would even consider making this movie. Yeah right ! What about Trump insulting a handicap reporter on live TV and making sexist remarks about women ! ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/23 "2016-04-30T14:52:31Z")
Quite a few people haven’t seen Everything Must Go or Stranger than Fiction apparently. Farrell actually does quiet dramedy very well. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/24 "2016-04-30T15:03:26Z")
Joking about a guy having Alzheimer’s isn’t appropriate. However, joking about a guy who has Alzheimer’s being the President, is. In fact, it’s the only appropriate, rational, and sane response to such a situation. The joke isn’t on Reagan. It’s on us, for electing and re-electing him. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/25 "2016-04-30T15:14:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Oh, just wrap yourself in the flag and go to sleep already. I think you’re missing that whooshing sound - or I am. Anyway, Reagan wasn’t diagnosed with Alzheimer’s until 1994 - five years after he left office. And when suspected and tested in office, he passed the test and allayed suspicion. Of course, that would never stop his detractors. From the [Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/17/ronald-reagan-alzheimers-president-son) (a left-wing newspaper) > [@](#): > > Altman returned to the subject in 1997, after Reagan had completed his second term. Having talked to many of the president’s doctors in the White House, he concluded that there was no evidence that Reagan had suffered any of the symptoms of dementia while in office. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/26 "2016-04-30T15:28:59Z")
> [@planetcory](#): > > Quite a few people haven’t seen Everything Must Go or Stranger than Fiction apparently. Farrell actually does quiet dramedy very well. I enjoyed Stranger than Fiction, never heard of Everything Must Go, but I’ve just added it to my Amazon watch list. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/27 "2016-04-30T15:30:07Z")
Leaving aside the tastelessness of having Alzheimer’s at the center of a comedy or the fact that there was little or no evidence that he did suffer from it in office, I can’t understand the choice of Will Farrell in the first place. He does not do impressions. His W was in the tradition of Chevy Chase’s Ford or Ackroyd’s Carter, it doesn’t look or really sound like him but let’s just wink at the camera and pretend. It worked because it was just a skit on a live tv show. Reagan has such a strong image that anyone doing a halfassed impression will take the audience right out of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/28 "2016-04-30T15:40:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Joking about a guy having Alzheimer’s isn’t appropriate. However, joking about a guy who has Alzheimer’s being the President, is. In fact, it’s the only appropriate, rational, and sane response to such a situation. > > The joke isn’t on Reagan. It’s on us, for electing and re-electing him. Even before Reagan started showing clear signs of dementia (or feigning them to avoid being questioned about Iran-Contra) he was never a particularly involved or astute executive, preferring to espouse general ideas about policy and then allowing his cabinet and senior staff fill in the basic details, often in ways that were contrary to the avowed goals and ostensible principles of the President and United States government, essentially allowing the executive office to be hijacked by what would come to be known as the neoconservative branch of the Republican party, whose real goals and actions (like shutting down the government in a childish temper tantrum) Reagan never would have endorsed. Reagan actually worked to get bipartisan support rather than just shut out the opposition, and he held sincere (if often misguided) beliefs that openly informed his decisions, in contrast to, well, pretty much everyone who has come after him. That he wasn’t all that intelligent and supported policies and developments that made little sense (like SDI or the proposed cutting of federal funding for school lunch programs in disadvantaged districts) wasn’t a result of Altzheimer’s; that was just Reagan and his Laffer curve/Brent Scowcroft/Jerry Falwell influenced obtusity. The joke on us is that we’ve successively elected presidents from both parties that have essentially taken the worst things about the Reagan-era policies and expanded them even more absurd extremes. Reagan, at least, never engaged in a wholesale invasion of an oil-producing nation in the midst of a region where we have zero political support or started a land war in Asia without any kind of exit strategy; he just invaded Grenada, a country that could barely fend off the McKenzie Brothers if they decided to attack. Not smart or necessary, but at least we weren’t still mired in an endless Caribbean conflict a decade later. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443/29 "2016-04-30T15:56:16Z")
On imdb, Ferrell is listed as producer; the sole writing credit is to Mike Rosolio, whoever that is. With Ferrell pulling out, it looks like this particular effort might ultimately be dead-in-the-water. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-ferrell-backs-out-of-ronald-reagan-alzheimers-comedy/753443.md?page=1)