The Credibility Gap

Satirical comedy troupe the Credibility Gap didn't enjoy significant popularity outside their native Southern California during their life span, but the group was a training ground for a number of major comic talents, including Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and David L. Lander. The Credibility Gap's name came from a Nixon-era euphemism for the distance between a politician's statements and the truth, and began in 1968 as a regular feature on Los Angeles radio station KRLA-AM created by news director Lew Irwin. Irwin and his collaborators Richard Beebe, Thom Beck, Len Chandler, and John Gilliland created the Credibility Gap to record and perform humorous sketches that parodied current events and were broadcast as part of KRLA's news and public affairs programming. Under Irwin's leadership, the troupe was popular enough to land a deal with Blue Thumb Records and release an album drawn from their KRLA sketches, An Album of Political Pornography. But in late 1968, Thom Beck left the group, and Lew Irwin followed in early 1969 (Irwin would go on to found another comedy group, the Fifth Estate, and created a successful syndicated underground radio news feature, Earth News). Joining the Credibility Gap in their absence were Harry Shearer, an actor, comedian, and writer who as a child appeared on The Jack Benny Show, and David L. Lander, a talented voice mimic hired by Irwin shortly before his departure. By 1970, Len Chandler and John Gilliland had drifted away from the Credibility Gap, and a friend of Lander's, a New York actor named Michael McKean, had joined the team, though the troupe's relationship with KRLA had soured and their show had been shrunk from 15 minutes to a mere 180 seconds. However, after Shearer landed a side gig as a disc jockey on an FM "free form"...