KEN: Perhaps someone has already come up to you today… If they haven’t, I’ll be the first to say it. “May the Fourth Be With You!” No, I’m not tongue-tied, although I have been today. It’s Star Wars Day, and where did this come from? When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, they created a holiday (corporations will do that sometimes) using it in 2020 to mark the finale of the animated series, Star Wars. So, it is Star Wars Day — May the Fourth Be With You! And what better occasion to revisit Rush’s Family Guy appearance.
QUAGMIRE: Hey, mind if I turn on the radio?
ANNOUNCER: WTAT. Tatooine’s All-Talk Radio.
RUSH: My good friends, the liberal galactic media is at it again. They never stop! Now they’re trying to convince us that Hoth is melting. Well, that’s crazy. They’re just trying to scare us — and if that weren’t enough to get you mad, we know have news that Lando Calrissian has been made the chief administrator of the Bespin mining facility. Gee, I wonder how he got that job. Well let me tell ya how he got that job: Affirmative Action strikes again.
KEN: That is iconic. I actually have that episode recorded. I completely forgot about that. That is crazy, and Rush actually appeared on the show more than once, and if you’re wondering how that came to be, here he is explaining it to a caller, how he wound up on Family Guy.
RUSH: Sarah in Wilmington, Delaware, you’re next on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: I was watching Family Guy last Sunday and there was a scene where it sounded like I heard a voice, and then I saw your name in the credits and I wanted to know how that came about.
RUSH: I was sitting here minding my own business and we got a call from Seth MacFarlane, who is the creator of the program, and he asked. This was back in… Gee, I think it was April or May, and he said, “We’re working on our season premiere for next season, ’07, and we’re doing a little Star Wars thing and we have a little bit of the script we’d like you to do, would you do it?”
They sent what the script was and it was fine, so I said, “Sure, I’d love to.” On the day they recorded it, I recorded it here in my studio and they were out in Hollywood or wherever they are, and I guess it took about twenty minutes to get it the way they wanted it done, and they were as nice as they could be. It was a lot of fun to do.
CALLER: Do you ever watch the show?
RUSH: I had never seen it. I had to go find out what it was about. I don’t watch cartoons.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I haven’t seen the Simpsons, either, in a long, long time. Nothing against it. Cartoons, to me, are for 8 years olds.
CALLER: Sure. Can I also tell you back when I was 19 — I’m 29 now — I once gave $20 to President Clinton’s defense fund and shortly after that I started to listen to you, and I started to think, and then I went on to go to law school and I became president of the Republican group at my law school, and I’m now practicing law, but I am definitely conservative and been listening to you for ten years, and you are the one who changed my thinking. I just want to thank you for that.
RUSH: Well, that is nice of you to say. I appreciate that. I love hearing these kinds of stories, because whether you know it or not, this kind of thing happens a lot and this threatens the Democrats, it threatens the left, and it makes me a bit of a target, to which I say, “Bring it on.” But you’re very kind. I really appreciate that. Thanks so much.
KEN: Rush went on to appear on Family Guy again, as you may remember, and we’ll be sure to play that for you on another date. But for now, on Star Wars Day, we like to think of him up among those stars, in a galaxy far, far away, but always close in memory here on the EIB Network.