Historian who sued to get Nixon tapes
MADISON, Wis. -- Watergate historian Stanley Kutler, who successfully fought for the release of President Richard Nixon's secret tapes, died Tuesday in Wisconsin. He was 80.
Kutler, who had been in declining health, died in hospice care in the Madison suburb of Fitchburg, according to his son, Andy Kutler.
Andy Kutler said his father "just had a love and a passion for the United States Constitution" and considered the Watergate scandal that drove Nixon from office in 1974 "an affront to the Constitution."
Stanley Kutler taught for 32 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, retiring in 1996, and remained a professor emeritus. He was the author of several books, including two on Nixon.
In 1992, Kutler and Public Citizen, an advocacy group, sued the National Archives to force the release of thousands of hours of White House conversations recorded by Nixon's secret taping system. Kutler won the gradual release of 3,700 hours worth of tapes in 1996.
Kutler used transcripts of the tapes to write his 1997 book Abuse of Power. He also wrote The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon.
Called 'father of the funny commercial'
LOS ANGELES -- Stan Freberg, who lampooned American history in his landmark recordings The United States of America and was hailed as the father of the funny commercial, died Tuesday. He was 88.
Freberg died at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, his wife, Hunter Freberg, said.
His face might not have been as recognizable as other humorists', but Freberg's influence was arguably greater, thanks to a huge body of work assembled over 70 years that encompassed radio, television, comedy albums, advertising jingles and nightclub performances.
He had his greatest impact through comic records and syndicated radio shows that began in the 1950s and continued into recent years.
His masterpiece was the pioneering concept album Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America, a work produced in two volumes that sounded seamless although they were recorded 35 years apart. They took the listener from the time of Columbus' arrival in North America (he couldn't pay for the land he'd just discovered because it was Columbus Day and the banks were closed) up to the time of World War I.
The album, a favorite of generations of schoolteachers, imparted key dates and events in the nation's history through a series of Broadway-style song-and-dance numbers.
After much success lampooning American pop culture, Freberg began to turn his attention in the late 1950s to advertising.
He won nearly two dozen Clio awards, advertising's equivalent of the Oscar, leading the industry publication Advertising Age to declare, "No one label fits Stan Freberg. But the father of the funny commercial seems a fitting epithet."
Metro on 04/09/2015