60) You say Potatoe, I Say Potato (Murphy Brown)

Even for a politician, Dan Quayle was prone to saying stupid things. Actually, he was prone to writing them, too, such as when he corrected a child’s spelling by saying that potato has an ‘e’ on the end of it, or when he decided that calling his memoirs “Standing Firm” didn’t invite dick jokes. To top it off, he decided to pick a fight with the News Anchor for CBS’s Telemagazine “FYI,” Murphy Brown. Nowadays, we are getting way too used to politicians picking personal fights with journalists, but back then it was not as common. The twist in this case, however, is that Murphy Brown is a fictional character (portrayed by Candice Bergen).

Misspelling words used to be political death.

At one point in the series, Murphy Brown became pregnant through a fling with her ex-husband, Jake Lowenstein (Robin Thomas). Jake, unwilling to give up his underground left-wing radical…