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Watch Ed Koch's 1983 Saturday Night Live Monologue, And Other Classic Koch Videos
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 1, 2013
Modified Feb 1, 2013
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 1, 2013
Modified Feb 1, 2013
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In 1983, Ed Koch became the first mayor to host Saturday Night Live, appearing on stage with a copy of the New York Times and asking the audience, "How am I doing? You don't really have to answer that. A better question might be 'What am I doing here?' " As you can see here, Koch wasn't exactly a natural. But he did know how to work a liberal Reagan-era crowd, taking the opportunity to call the president a "wacko" on national TV:
In 1985, Ed Koch joined Yoko Ono to dedicate the John Lennon garden (a.k.a. Strawberry Field) in Central Park:
In 1981 Koch ran for governor, losing to then-lieutenant governor Mario Cuomo. Some believed he lost for dismissing the lifestyle of suburbia and upstate New York as "sterile." Here's one of his campaign ads:
In 1979, two years into his first term, Koch was a guest on William F. Buckley's show "Firing Line" gets off to a good start with Buckley declaring that the mayor "tends to be in favor of all the wrong things: rent control, higher taxes...a federal consumer protection agency.":
After leaving office, Koch was a judge on the People's Court from 1997 to 1999. Watch him settle a dispute between a rock band and a landlord. The good arguing starts around the 3:50 mark:
And here's the magnificent 1983 Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short Film Short, which starred a stop-motion animation Koch singing a riff on New York, New York around town.
Tagged
ed koch
saturday night live
snl
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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