"Killian!"

As long as they’ve got Arnie hashing out lines from his old action flicks, let’s remember The Running Man,

one of my favourites. Richard Dawson played an especially memorable

villian because he played it by doing what he does best: being a smarmy

game show host.

(For those of you who are too young to remember, Dawson was the original host of the American TV game show Family Feud.)

“Who loves you…and who do you love?! It’s time to start…running!”

What you may not remember is that Dawson’s character’s name in The Running Man

is “Killian”. “Killian” also happens to be the name of President Bush’s

commanding officer back in the early 1970s — the one who purportedly

wrote the memos that are now believed to be possible forgeries.

Another interesting coincidence: Like the running men Bush and Kerry,

the veracity of reports on Running Man Arnie’s character’s military

service is called into question. The official story is that Arnie’s

character is “The Butcher of Bakersfield”, a US Army helicopter pilot

who shot at innocent civilians. In reality, he defied orders to shoot

at a food riot in progress, saying that they were just innocent people

trying to eat.

Surely some speechwriter is going over The Running Man right now,

looking for the appropriate Arnie one-liners for the governator to use.

Perhaps Arnie’s worst one-liner, “Killian! Here is Sub-Zero. Now just

plain zero!”, might be a good starting point.

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Other interesting tidbits about The Running Man:

• With Arnie now in office, this movie now features two future governors: Arnie and Jesse “The Body” Ventura, who would go on to become the governor of Minnesota.
• The movie was eerily prescient, predicting “extreme” game shows such as American Gladiators.
• In the movie, a good chunk of the government’s work involves

  keeping the population misinformed and entertained. I loved Dawson’s

  line as he gets on the phone: “Get me the Justice Department…

  Entertainment Division”.