The Kennedys Miniseries on Reelz

The orphaned TV miniseries The Kennedys, was finally picked up by Reelz Network after a tough fight to keep it on it's former cable outlet. The controversial drama will premiere on April 3rd, despite some setbacks -- and, it seems, they got the presidential portrait right-on:

The left is the official White Houser portrait, on the right is Greg Kinnear, who plays JFK. I wonder what Seymour Hersh thinks.

Disney Votes For Eisenhower

The Walt Disney Company in the 1950's was best known for Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953), but one animation is overlooked on their wikipedia page: a TV spot for presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, titled I Like Ike.

 

The 1952 spot, which was produced by Roy Disney (Walt's brother) and donated by Walt Disney Studios, even threw a few punches, first showing three rather hapless donkeys ("We don't want John or Dean or Harry") in a stable and then a donkey marching in the wrong direction in the background. The three are likely John Sparkman, Dean Acheson and Harry Truman. 

It was the only political commercial Disney ever produced and was credited with softening Eisenhower's image. Further helping the WWII general was the fact that Adlai Stevenson hardly ran any TV advertising, refusing to be sold "like soap". 

A Political Host's Dream

Scoring interviews with heavyweight politicians is the name of the game in political journalism, especially amongst cable TV hosts. It just so happened that in 1967 two of the brightest political figures appeared together on a televised "international town hall": Ronald Reagan and Robert F. Kennedy.