On Demand
GM's New Plan
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Automaker GM has revealed a new line of cars that it says will help it emerge from the recession a financially stable company.
- About the Brian Lehrer Show »
- Staff Bios »
- Contact Us »
- Tapes and Transcripts »
- Latest Episode »
- Show Archive »
Features & Series
Podcast
Stay up to date.
Subscribe to the Podcast
YOU PRODUCE The Brian Lehrer Show
Be a listener-producer with facts, questions and people you'd like to hear on the air.
More
The Brian Lehrer Show Scrapbook
Visit the scrapbook for daily photos and miscellany from The Brian Lehrer Show.
More
Shop at Amazon!
The Brian Lehrer Show picks
Start your Amazon shopping on WNYC.org and a portion of your total purchase goes to WNYC.
More
Comments
Refresh
thats all you got for april 1?
Haha, GM making good cars! April's fool.
GM shouldn't be naming cars after the Obama girls. Period.
I prefer the Hillary, a little older, perhaps clunkier, but its reliable and gets around
You had me going for about a minute.
April Fool!
Hmm... What day is it today?
Right, April Fool's.
Brian:
This has to be an April Fool's joke. If not the joke is on me.
April Fool's, Brian!
ok ok ok.
hahah ah.
funny.
april fools.
jesus you had me going for a bit.
I'll take my Sasha car with one of those matching Sasha dolls that have been discontinued.
April Fools!
this is too easy to see through, and one can hear the glee in Brian's voice. Brian, take some acting lessons next March 31 before you go on air the next day!
APRIL FOOLS!!
How about the Michelle model of car? Let's see which part of the car is exposed, maybe it is a convertible, well toned per Michelle's arms.
nice try Brian! April Fool's!
ok, let it go. This is the weakest april fool's joke yet.
I don't think either car is quite ready for prime-time -- I'm hoping to pick up a "Michelle" in 2012 or 2016.
Is this a Joke? Naming cars after his kids?
Pathetic!
If I were Sascha or Malia I'd sue for misappropriiation and disparagement of my name being associated with two losers, GM and AIG.
Didn't you hear about the Al Gore Electric car that was supposed to get released Last April 1st
C'mon, these sound like great cars... I want one! WNYC producers should be the ones running GM.
As long as the cars are run on natural gas I'll take either one.
Obvious from the first 5 words, unfunny--and utterly despicable.
I have great respect for you, Brian, but you're not known as a humorist and this proves it. Totally tone deaf.
Leave the kids out of it!
Bad joke. maybe it is time to cancel my subsciption to WNYC and buy a GM car. Now that's funny.
Oh Please, [violins playing... or are those cats meowing!]
Wait - are you serious??? Oh my god! NUTS!
Oh, Brian. You're too accustomed to telling the truth! Your tone of voice betrayed you at the transition before you even started the story.
Well, it's our luck all the other days of the year that you're a terrible liar!
STOP with the April Fool's, Brian, STOP, STOP. ;-) Thanks for the good (?!?!) humor.
I think April Fools jokes should get shorter segments than this.
Last year's was better.
*snort* "Clean coal pellets"
april fool's!!!!
There's too much real news to report on today, sorry Brian, not funny enough!
You were doing pretty well - almost feasible - until ya started on the Stanley Steamer principle.
this was funny for 5 minutes. get back to the news!
Ha. ha. Funny April Fools.
I think you might have had a very few fooled at first, but the AIG policy took it too far, anyone still on it should loose the right to vote!
And Brian, I expected a little more, too easy!
good one, brian! april fools!
Nice try to April fool us, Brian. :-D
not funny enough to waste all of this time. lame. try harder next year
It must be April Fool's, Brian is doing a comedy bit that channels the Rush Limbaugh show.
ah ah... cute
I'm holding out for the Michelle,the model that comes with arms (also suitable for drug cartel use).
OK, enough already. Fell flat.
"Bidonite is the byproduct of a gaseous organism found only in Delaware"
Great April Fools.
I am waiting for Fiat and Chrysler to merge and revive the classic Pistachio, I did hear the current version is under recall.
sigh. i'm changing the station.
ok... with a little coffee I can now see the light ;)
On a related note, did you hear about this?
http://transalt.org/newsroom/releases/3152
This is the most stupid waste of time ever.
Too cute by half. You really ought to leave the humor up to the experts. Lame.
I actually went to GM's site to look up the cars O_O Great April Fool's!
reason I clued in is that I believe Brian Lehrer does not like Obama and he seemed way too charmed by this idea.
Sign me up!
Ugh. Lame April Fool's show. This prank was worth about 30 secs at most. Please stop or no more contributions during pledge drives and that's no joke.
Very cute ;)
*This* is what you got for this year? You're not usually this obvious. Although it's almost worth it for the "bidenite" part.
Very good story. I was believing it for a while.
Brilliant. The Onion could learn a thing or two.
A year in the making -yeah right.
sasha and malia car talk?
brian - april fool's is fine, but this is idiotic. not to mention that talking about the president's daughters in terms of "models of cars" is disrespectful. leave the kids out of it, unless there is a legitimate reason to talk about it. don't use them to get your laughs.
It's amazing what our dear car companies have in their hip pocket when the fire gets turned up. Innovation is the American way.
More fun reading the comments and letting the rest of the joke float around in the background.
still, I'm glad somebody has a sense of humor even if I don't ...
; )
Hey Brian,
You got people going!!! April's Fools!
Nice April Fools
Last years was pretty good too.
this is kind of irritating. obviously your april fools. you can do better.
C'mon Brian!!
Seriously?
Sooooooo long. Sooooooo not funny.
Wait until you see the new Dodge Rahm!
Is the government going to honor the warranty for my Jenna and Barbara SUVs - the wheels are already falling off... and do you think the governemnt will give me a stimulus rebate given the massive amount of gas guzzling?
I'm glad they've been able to successfully extract Bidenite safely because I would've been really upset if they had to open up the Alaskan wilderness to start mining Palinite.
Or the Austen-Martin Goolsbee!
I hope you realize that all who are participating in this are going to hades for bad acting. You will spend the rest of your eternal lives washing cars while forced to listen to Barbra Streisand music... in eternam as well as ad infinitam et ad nauseam--the last of which will be sooner than you think.
I'll admit, I googled it. Then I blushed.
that was the most elaborate April fools segment I've heard in a while, but I have to say the BBC ones this morning were better.
As for the recent development--the big ugly condo buildings have made the city less interesting looking. The lack of energy surrounding them is amazing. Development and real estate interests have made for a less eccentric, neighborly city in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn-Atlantic Yards is a prime example.
Nice try Brian. April Fool. Now for something serious: I am available to conduct a concert band of WNYC's choice in a fundraising performance.
Sorry, but this is just painful to listen to!
Brian, you are better than this!
Ok not funny, not interesting, and not even worth listening too. Come on can't you be more creative than this???? sad.
That was a terrible segment! Likening cars to women - or in this case, girls - is just creepy - there's no way around it. BL sounded almost as unconmfortable extolling these "models" as I felt listening...
Neither, I don't think it's cute. Ridiculous and degrading.
How about calling them reliable or dependable and having them stand up to their name!
Congratulations. Sillier and sillier every year. Brian, you outdid yourself.
Katie
Not a good joke, I hate April fools! Makes people act like fools!!
Just another way for Brian to show his disrespect for the President and his family.
I guess that was an April Fools' joke. Too bad, I was almost believing it.
The Asian-American Friendship Society will purchase 10,000 units of the Sascha and Maria.
lighten up people!!!!!
hahah. i was like, " HOW COULD THEY RELEASE A CAR IF THEY ARE WORKING WITH FIAT ON A COLLABORATION CAR?" I rushed to my local library to get online and see this oddly fantastic news.
LOL!! the top of the car has a basketball net print!!...
thanks.
HOPI
2010
Brian, it was a very good and appropriate April fools joke. I enjoyed it so much that I sent it to my good friend. —by the way, the mineral is biodite
OK, April’s Fool, ha ha ha. How about acknowledging the tragedy hidden in this bit of lame comedy and do a show on reforming the US auto policy….. maybe not too relevant to non driving New Yorkers, but very topical for the country as a whole and the ongoing bail out (& recession).
Putting aside the health care and pension mess responsible for the destruction of the US auto industry = $44 extra over a worker's pay per man hour for pensions and healthcare costs for the thousands of retirees (lots of blame to go around, from NAFTA through pervasive mismanagement and the incestuous relationship with the Unions), NOW is the moment to redirect GM etc. into building new eco-friendly cars HERE within the US borders with the intention of advancing technology so vehicles can be exported to the rest of the world……. The tradegy is that the money is flowing but not into the needed infrastructure.
One small example: In Europe, Ford offers the diesel powered Focus 2.0 TDCi Titanium - 42mpg. ( 4mpg less than the king of fuel-economy, the Prius). Producing that diesel engine here would require building a plant which would cost at least $350 million - currently Ford has been burning through more than $1 billion a month in cash reserves to cover losses - $350 million seems doable. On the public side, currently, the Federal gov’t imposes taxes aimed at commercial trucks meaning diesel costs anywhere from 40 cents to $1 more per gallon than gasoline. Why not waive this for passenger cars? These diesel vehicles with modern pollution-fighting technology are as clean or cleaner than gasoline and at least 30% more fuel-efficient.
Diesel is not the ultimate solution, but this is a “shovel ready” way to address many of Pres. Obama’s priorities and this country’s need for sustainable jobs and a more healthy economic position in the world.
i thought it was very funny.. some of your listeners seem to take their "humor" too seriously!
I had not even realized that it was April Fools day until I logged into comment! You got me! I love the idea of the Sasha and Malia cars though and think you should pitch it to GM!!!!! I had a great laugh- at myself! Thanks Brian for the light touch in these times!
If you had kids you'd never ever ever pull a stunt like this.
Celebrity in our obsessed society warps adults. To pull this crap on a 9 and 11 year old is truly disgusting, and sets a tone and an acceptance that others will be only too glad to take even further.
LEAVE THE KIDS OUT OF IT.
I didn't realize WNYC was the new PR firm for GM. The American auto industry drives itself into the ground, and it gets a free pass? Are we really that wrapped up in the "GM is America" myth? Brian: Re-listen to your "How did 9,000 business reporters blow it," again.
oh, lame
I totally fell for it. I listened to in the morning and just now asked my husband about it if he heard anything. He told me to research it again and the only thing I found was leading to this site. Reading all the comments made me laugh...and my husband had a even greater laugh. The funny thing is I text messaged him this morning telling him that one of his tires was flat on his car. It was a nice april fools. But nothing compared to what you guys did. It gave my husband a great feeling of redemption.
Ha ha ha Very funny Brian, love it. I bet lots of people fell for it when they heard it in the morning.
well GM is already in trouble but this joke can really help the automakers. you know what !this may work for the car industry! I would defantly buy a car name sasha or malia adios amigos
but wouldn't it be awesome if obama really did have detroit by the balls and could hold them to the wall? doesn't he?
happy april fools. you had me.
This was really funny!!! All the angry comments are by ignorant humorless jerks. Long? - that's the whole point - it is like a regular topic. FUNNY!!!!!
Note that those who think this distasteful segment was funny make liberal use of their caps lock and exclamation point keys.
'nuff said.
I'm also betting none of them has the slightest connection in their daily lives to kids. Or they'd know what easy targets kids are, and how vulnerable kids are to being manipulated by adults for their own purposes--especially for some stupid joke at the kids' expense. Somehow, it's not funny.
You left Chelsea alone, you left the Bush twins alone. Understandably. Why can't you leave the Obama kids alone?
Thanks for helping me learn the names of the President's kids.
Leave a Comment
Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief.
Back to EpisodeEmail addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Names are displayed with all comments. WNYC reserves the right to edit any comments posted on this site. Please read the WNYC.org Comment Guidelines before posting.