Tom Lehrer and True Dough Mania

When people buy a gift for themselves, it’s usually something expensive and excessive.  No, not me.  I bought a vintage comedy album.  I found An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer at a store that sells an amazing selection of videos and albums in Stratford, Ontario over the holidays.  I first learned about Professor Lehrer (yes, he’s a retired professor of mathematics and musical theatre at both Harvard University and the University of California—Santa Cruz), when I was in broadcasting school and my instructor—who grew up in Massachusetts during the height of Lehrer’s popularity mentioned him one day.  A Youtube search followed and I’ve been a fan ever since. 

Tom Lehrer, now 87, is probably the funniest mathematician to ever grace his discipline.  I wish I’d had him as a teacher in high school, I may have actually passed the courses.  This man of numbers is also a pianist and started writing satirical songs in the 1950s.  Topics included contemporary ironies within the realm of civil rights, religion, politics, and otherwise taboo subjects of the time involving sex and crime.  The Lehrer repertoire includes memorable tunes like Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, National Brotherhood Week, Oedipus Rex, The Vatican Rag, and a nostalgic look at a not so wholesome upbringing in My Hometown.  This particular album, recorded live at Harvard sometime in the late 1950’s is still funny today.  It keeps me laughing.

A couple of months ago, my sister gave me this piece of obscure Canadian political satire.

  True Dough Mania is a board game parody of the government of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, father of Justin Trudeau, the current occupant of that office.  The first player to lose all of their assets and money in the game to the government is the winner.  The game was released in 1982 when Pierre Trudeau’s leadership was near its end and facing growing unpopularity, quite the opposite from the “Trudeaumania” accompanying his arrival in office in the late 1960s.  The worthless fake money in the game; True Dough dollars, are amusing.

  Could we soon see similar notes with Justin’s face on them valued at 0.71 cents US?  Will a Canadian video game developer, or university student with nothing better to do soon come up with an electronic version of True Dough Mania?