While accepting the gift from Elvis Nixon said Vice President Spiro Agnew would not accept any gifts since he was an elected official. Of course Spiro Agnew resigned after he was convicted of taking more than $100,000 in bribes while holding office as Baltimore County Executive, Governor of Maryland, and Vice President.
I thought it was one of the bigger laughs in the entire movie. The other being the encounter with the Elvis impersonators.
... good recognition on your part. I knew that the Agnew line was ironic and humorous, but I had not recognized just how ironic it happened to be. Now that you mention it, yeah, the irony and humor proved very precise.
shareI thought Elvis told Nixon he'd offered a gift to Agnew and he'd refused it because he was an elected official.
Regardless, my audience had mostly women in their 70s and I heard them laughing at other stuff, but nobody laughed at the Spiro Agnew line, except me. I was surprised.
But this was in Memphis--maybe they were there just for the Elvis angle and not biting commentary.
I was about 12 when Agnew resigned. Watching this film, I expected that line was supposed to be funny, but I just could not remember exactly what Agnew did (I believe tax evasion was involved). I think too many years have passed for your average American, even those over 60, to remember exactly what Agnew did that forced him to resign.
shareI chuckled though watched at home. In a theater (or elsewhere) I suspect the joke would be missed by everyone not well versed on 70's national politics. Reminds me yesterday watching Rudy Giuliani at a Trump Tampa rally comparing the Hilary email debacle to the Teapot Dome scandal of the 20's. First thing came to mind was that probably less than 1% of the large audience ever heard of Teapot Dome and if so totally forgot about it.
He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator.
The problem with the Teapot Dome analogy is that nobody in the audience would remember it from experiencing it. TopFlight is saying that even people over 60 won't remember what Agnew did, so I did a little survey among people I know and those over 60 (plus me, at 59) knew it was something to do with bribery and those under 60 didn't know why he'd resigned.
I'll note that the OP, whose screen name has 1958 in it, got the joke, and if 1958 is year of birth, then s/he was 15, to my 16.
I think there's a difference between remembering history you learned and events that you experienced. The Agnew thing was a pretty big deal because the Nixon administration was already in trouble. Nixon resigned less than a year later.
At least among the people I know, those who were adult-ish when it happened remember it well enough to get a joke about it. But I'll admit my sample didn't include female Elvis fans in Memphis in their 70s.
I actually missed that one. Did catch the line about how Chapin never followed the rules, though.
share