File:Al_Franken,_official_portrait,_114th_Congress_(cropped).jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Al Franken
Sign in to saveAlso known as Alan Stuart Franken, Alan Stuart "Al" Franken
American comedian and politician (born 1951)
OverviewAI-generated
Al Franken, born Alan Stuart Franken on May 21, 1951, in Manhattan, is an American screenwriter, politician, radio personality, and television actor. A member of the Democratic Party and the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, he served as a United States senator and worked in Washington, D.C. He is a citizen of the United States, speaks English, and practices Judaism. Franken was educated at Harvard College and has resided in New York City and Minneapolis.
His career includes receiving a Primetime Emmy Award. He is the author of thirty-nine works, including *The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005*, *Oh, the Things I Know!*, *Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations*, and *Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them*. His official website describes him as a writer, comedian, and former US Senator.
Synthesized by Vinony from 45 facts across 10 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Firecrawl, Wikiquote, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- May 21, 1951
- Works
- 39
Top works
- The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005
- Oh, the Things I Know!
- Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations
- Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
- Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot
via Open Library + Wikidata
Film & TV
Acting · New York City, New York, USA
Alan Stuart Franken is an American comedian, politician, media personality, and author who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. He became well known in the 1970s and 1980s as a staff writer and performer on the television comedy show Saturday Night Live.
Known for
- Lorne — Self2026
- Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music — Self - SNL Writer / Self - Cast Member / Self - Producer 1975 - 19952025
- Downey Wrote That — Self2025
- The Residence — Aaron Filkins2025
- SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night — Self2025
- Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue — Gramps (voice)2024
- Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh — Self2019
- Biography: Comedy Icons — Self2019
- Inside the Russian Info War Machine — Self2018
- Minnesota Experience — Self (archive footage)2018
via TMDB
Music · MusicBrainz
- Type
- Person
- Gender
- Male
- Country
- United States
- Active from
- 1951
Discography
Member of
- Saturday Night Live1977–1995
- Franken And Davis
via MusicBrainz · CC0
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 3,230
- Total plays
- 84,002
Tags
Senator Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American politician, comedian, author, political commentator, and radio host, noted for his liberal politics. Franken first achieved national prominence on Saturday Night Live as the writing and performing partner of Tom Davis. His more recent career accomplishments are more politically-oriented, authoring books such as Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, serving as host of the flagship program from Air America Radio <a
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- Reproducible, interactive, scalable and extensible microbiome data science using QIIME 2
· 2019 · cited 20,832x
- Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019
· 2020 · cited 15,938x
- Tissue-based map of the human proteome
· 2015 · cited 14,085x
- Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017
· 2018 · cited 10,989x
- Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases and Risk Factors, 1990–2019
· 2020 · cited 10,210x
via Crossref · CC0
Quotes
- “Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.”
- “When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.”
- “The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They're about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover.”
- “What I do is taking what they say and using it against them. What I do is jujitsu.”
- “Net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time. Today, a blog can load as fast as the Wall Street Journal — and, if the blog is good, it can get more traffic than any media conglomerate. But if bigger companies can pay for faster, priority Internet access, that blogger no longer has a shot. And these big companies know that when they pay for access, they win. They want preferred treatment on the Internet like the preferred treatment they get in the rest of their lives.”
- “I've said that net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. It's true. If Republicans have their way, large corporations won't just have the loudest voices in the room. They'll be able to effectively silence everyone else. Every small business they'd prefer not to compete with. Every blogger who publishes something they don't like. We have to stop them.”
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Key facts
- Preceded by
- Norm Coleman
- Succeeded by
- Tina Smith
- Born
- Alan Stuart Franken , ( 1951-05-21 ) May 21, 1951 (age 75) , New York City , New York , U.S.
- Party
- Democratic ( DFL )
- Spouse
- Franni Bryson ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1975 )
- Education
- Harvard University ( BA )
via Wikipedia infobox
Official website
Home – AlFranken.com
Official Website of writer, comedian, and former US Senator Al Franken.
alfranken.com →As far as I know, I’m the only U.S. Senator who was also one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live , where I worked for fifteen seasons. I’ve won five Emmys for writing and producing – even though Wikipedia says I won three. Wikipedia is wrong. I’m also the author of four 1 New York Times bestsellers, including Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations , Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them – A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, and Al Franken, Giant of the Senate. I also won two Grammys, which Wikipedia also doesn’t mention. But that’s okay. I served Minnesota in the Senate from 2009-2018, clobbering my first opponent Norm Coleman by a margin of 312 votes. My second time around I won by a larger margin that’s not worth mentioning. I served on the Judiciary, Energy, Indian Affairs, and HELP (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) Committees where I routinely embarrassed badly prepared witnesses and was a fierce opponent of media concentration, mandatory arbitration, and Betsy DeVos. I wrote a key provision of the Affordable Care Act – the Medical Loss Ratio, which requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% (85% for large group plans) of premiums on actual health care and not profits, administrative costs, executive salaries, and marketing. If they don’t, they must rebate the difference to policyholders. Millions of Americans, very likely including you, have received billions in rebates. You’re welcome. Franni and I have been married for 50 years, many of them happy. Our two kids, Thomasin and Joe, have each produced two grandchildren. All four are spectacular!
Read more on their site →Excerpt from the official site · 4,930 chars · not written by Vinony
~34 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American politician, comedian, screenwriter, and actor who served from 2009 until his resignation in 2018 as a United States senator from Minnesota. A member of the Democratic Party, he worked as an entertainer, appearing on television and in films, before entering politics.
Franken first gained fame as a writer and performer on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where he worked three stints. He first served as a writer for the show from 1975 to 1980, and returned from 1985 to 1995 as a writer and, briefly, a cast member. After his career in the entertainment industry, Franken became a liberal political activist, hosting a radio show and writing satirical books scrutinizing the American right.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Al Franken” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.