First Family 1 & 2

Vaughn Meader | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 2, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collectables
• ASIN: B00001ZT1M
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #188,261 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Experiment

2. After Dinner Conversations

3. The Malayan Ambassador

4. Relatively Spring

5. Astronauts

6. Motorcade

7. The Party

8. The Tour

9. But Vote!!

10. Economy Lunch

11. The Decision

12. White House Visitor

13. Press Conference

14. The Dress

15. Saturday Night, Sunday Morning

16. Auld Lang Syne

17. Bedtime Story

18. An Evening with JFK

19. 1958

20. The Trial

See all 33 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Would be 5 stars if not for the sound quality, January 6, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: First Family 1 & 2 (Audio CD)

These two comedy albums were very popular back in 1962-63 (and the years after JFK's assassination), and for good reason. The first album was especially brilliant, with great writing, good impersonations and performances, a lot of intelligent material and great laughter. The second album was almost as good. Both albums were originally available in both mono and stereo according to the album jackets, although I've never heard them in stereo or seen copies in used record stores. But that's one of the main problems with this reissue: it's monophonic. Why weren't the stereo tapes found and used? Worse, noise reduction techniques were employed on these tapes, probably to reduce tape hiss, but the effect sounds as if someone has turned on Dolby C on a non-encoded tape, so there are bursts of sound that are annoying and not present on the LPs. This may work OK on some music recordings, but for spoken word, the results are poor. Speech sounds unreal, and some sound effects such as walking sound like crunching. Also a disappointment is that with the two albums collected together on one CD, it would have been nice to see the 1963 Christmas single, Christmas at the White House, included. I understand this was withdrawn immediately after it was issued because of JFK's death in November 1963 and the national mood at that time. As for this CD, the original material warrants 5 stars, the poor CD mastering and effort by the CD company drags this down.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collectables has produced an acoustical masterpiece, November 4, 2001

By 

Nancy Moran (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Family 1 & 2 (Audio CD)

"The First Family" vols. 1 & 2 really put you back into 1962-1963 at the height of the Kennedy administration. When two characters are speaking, it sounds like there are two people in the room. There are tender moments with the Kennedy family, but there are far more interesting moments such as when Adenaur, de Gaulle, Nasser, Ben Gurion, Chang Kai-shek, Castro, Kruschev and Nkrume are sitting down to lunch.

A lot of material is direct take-off from press conferences. There are references to well-known commercials and the politics of the time (a knowledge of the cabinet, the Senate and the IRS is recommended). There is deadpan and slapstick and pratfalls. There is Jewish humor. The timing and accents on the part of all the actors is perfect.

Q. "When are we sending a man to the moon?"
A. "Whenever Senator Goldwater wants to go!"

What might detract from this album is that it is loaded with '62/'63 "inside" jokes - a few of them even I can't decipher. Who is Elsa Maxwell? Who is Paul Butler?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even as a relic, it's funny as heck, October 29, 2003

By 

Tom Tuerff (That there Phoenix place) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: First Family 1 & 2 (Audio CD)

I was no more than five when my parents bought this album and it quickly became my favorite, even though I obviously had no idea what most of the jokes meant. Still, I found a lot of it funny simply because the setups were cartoon-silly: The Malayan Ambassador bit, the discussion of who owns which bath toys, etc.

The older I got, and the more I read about JFK, I got more of the jokes. And now, when Kennedyism is almost America's national pastime, I dare say that "The First Family" is almost more valuable as a view of the Camelot years than any book that was ever written about it.

Poor Vaughan Meader! He had JFK down pat, and as you probably know, when Kennedy went down, so did Meader. But his JFK is SO good. The metre, the timbre, it's all there.

And these jokes are still funny, 40 years later. The world summit leaders trying to order sandwiches is still marvelous; Jackie's tour of the White House is classic vaudeville-style radio comedy; JFK telling Caroline a not-so-subtle US vs. Reds fable as a bedtime story, hell, I could go on for days.

So good to see this on CD! Pick it up.

TT