(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
GK: .....this portion of our show brought to you by Earl's Academy of Accents. If you're from the Midwest and interested in a career in the hospitality industry or in the arts, a foreign accent can really help you get ahead. Here's satisfied Accent Academy graduate Bob Egeberg.
TR (MINNESOTA): Yeah, I've been a playwright and director, you know, for years and years and I'd go to these theaters and ask about a job and they'd just, you know, laugh in my face and then ---- (BRITISH) I spent a fortnight at the Academy and acquired an accent and now ---- I'm in THEATRE! I'm in huge demand! It's terribly terribly exciting! (MINNESOTA) But then I found that when I had that accent, women assumed I wasn't the sort of guy who is romantically interested in them, if you get my drift so --- (FRENCH) I went back to the Academy and mastered a new accent that --- voila ---- tres debonaire! ---- the women they ---- (FRENCH GIBBERISH AND GALLIC CHUCKLE) ---- (MINNESOTA) but when I talked like that I found that people expected me to be witty and sophisticated and the life of the party so ----- (RUSSIAN) I got another voice for when I am very depressed and gloomy and want only to talk about suffering and death.
GK: A good accent can be helpful to your career ----
TR (KISSINGER): This is Henry Kissinger and before I went to Earl's Academy of Accents---(TR MINNESOTA)---I talked like this, dontcha know.
GK: Yes, if you're a diplomat, or if you're a novelist, you don't want to talk like this-----
TR (MINNESOTA): Boy, this social realism is something, lemme tell you. It took me months to write that book. It was a toughie all right. Whoa.
GK: Or if you're waiting on tables----
TR (MIDWESTERN): So howdja like that Bordeaux then, huh? That hit the spot? Didn't take you long to finish that one up, now did it.
GK: Or if you're a mystic----
TR (MIDWESTERN): Yeah, it sure seems to me like the great circle of the oneness of spirit is where a guy gets what you might call the wholeness of being or whatever----
GK: You want a different accent----
TR (INDIAN): Oh yes, a good accent is very very important to us mystics, I think, yes it is, oh yes, very very important.
GK: Join Henry Kissinger and other famous graduates Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Wolfgang Puck, Antonio Banderas, and Dame Judy Dench. That's Earl's Academy of Accents. Why waste years learning a language so you can say unintelligent things in Spanish when you can pick up three or four accents in just a few weeks?
TR (SWEDISH): Yeah, give us a call and we'll see what we can do for you then.
© Garrison Keillor 2001