Al Franken, comedian, New York

My first memory of really getting engaged in politics was the civil rights movement. I remember sort of watching demonstrations in the South, and police dogs being released on demonstrators, and people being fire-hosed and clubbed and stuff, and my parents saying, "This is so wrong." As Jews, we had to care about this because, you know, of the things that had happened to us in Germany long ago. My dad was a card-carrying member of the NAACP, even though he was a Republican. He was very disgusted by [Barry] Goldwater voting against the Civil Rights Act, and became a Democrat. And that's the first time I sort of remember saying, "I'm a Democrat."

I don't remember thinking that I wanted to go into politics or anything like that. At that time, I was a kid, so if I was watching the Twins on TV, I wanted to be center fielder for the Twins. When I was watching the Vikings, I wanted to be Fran Tarkenton. If I was watching politics, I wanted to be JFK. What I really decided to do was go into comedy. I had been doing comedy in high school with a partner. In 10th grade, I switched from public school to a country day school in Hopkins, Minnesota, that was founded at the turn of the last century as a school for Protestant boys. But in the '50s, they started letting Jews in -- to keep the SAT scores up -- and so there I was. They had chapel in the morning, and they did announcements. And I started to do announcements with another kid, Tom Davis, of Franken and Davis "fame." And then we started doing a club in Minneapolis. It was kind of a big transition, but we did it. And I got bit, you know. During my junior and senior years [in college], we actually hitchhiked out to L.A. and performed at the Comedy Store there. In those days, two males could travel together and hitchhike and not feel like they would get killed.

Getting up night after night in front of an audience and making them laugh is nerve-racking to do if you're not good at it. That's the thing. It's not that bad if you're good at it. And I started in the friendly confines of chapel. I'm Jewish, so chapel is the best thing that ever happened.

Interview by Cathy Areu