Council's Holiday Skit Pokes Fun at Own Efforts

In the spirit of the season, we bring you snippets from the County Council's hush-hush annual holiday skit. For more than two decades, the council's staff has penned parodies of the year's initiatives with council members serving as beholden actors, learning of their roles only as they change into costume.

Past themes have included "Star Wars," "Saturday Night Fever" and last year's, "Happy Days," with council members Marc Elrich (D-At Large) and Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda) dressed in drag as Laverne and Shirley. When County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) was on the council, he was cast as Indiana Jones and John Travolta.

This year's skit, performed last week at the council building in Rockville, was a take on "It's a Wonderful Life," set in the made-up town of "Clarksburg-ville." There were playful digs at some of the council's efforts to ban trans fats in restaurants, study producing biodiesel fuel from restaurant grease, require nutritional information on chain restaurant menus and allow more deer hunting in the county.

One of the more memorable skits involved art imitating life. Council member George Leventhal (D-At Large) plays the role of a taxi driver whose cab hits a deer. Leventhal hops out, shoots the deer with a rifle and exclaims, "I love this job." In real life, Leventhal survived a November collision with a deer on the Capital Beltway.

The hero of the "It's a Wonderful Life" skit was newly elected council President Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty) in the role of George Bailey. The villain, wealthy Henry Potter, who wants to take over the town, was played by council member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large). The duo sang a version of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" from "Annie Get Your Gun." The two characters one-up each other about better planning and building wider roads.

Floreen: "All the restaurant doormats will praise the joys of trans-fats."

Knapp: "I will end the deer kills with contraceptive salt pills."

Floreen: "I will pave all parklands with undocumented work bands."

Knapp: "Under my direction, we'll spread sex education."

The skit was briefly interrupted by a mock advertisement for "Tasty Trans-Fat Super Tofu Burgers." The ad warned that prices may be slightly higher in Clarksburg-ville due to "nutritional labeling requirements."

Berliner played a bartender in a tuxedo, Elrich was a pharmacist and council member Valerie Ervin (D-Silver Spring) was an angel.

Council member Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large), as George Bailey's daughter, inquired, in a nod to the biodiesel initiative and Montgomery's reputation for government regulation: "Now I hear that all cars must run on french fry oil. Does that mean we all have a quota of french fries to eat every day?"