James Danforth "Dan" Quayle ( /ˈkweɪl/; born February 4, 1947) served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush (1989–1993). He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana.

Quayle was born in Indianapolis but spent most of his childhood living in Arizona. He married Marilyn Tucker in 1972 and obtained his J.D. from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 1974. He practiced law in Huntington, Indiana with his wife before being elected to the United States Congress in 1976, aged 29. In 1980, Quayle was elected to the Senate.

In 1988, Vice President George H. W. Bush was nominated for the presidency by the Republican Party and asked his party to nominate Quayle as his vice presidential running mate. Although this choice was met with some dismay, the Bush/Quayle ticket won the 1988 election over Democrats Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen. As vice president, Quayle made official visits to 47 countries and was appointed chairman of the National Space Council. He secured re-nomination for vice-president in 1992 but the Bush/Quayle ticket was defeated by Democrat Bill Clinton and his vice-presidential running mate, Al Gore.

Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr. (February 11, 1921 – May 23, 2006) was a four-term United States senator (1971–1993) from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket. He also served in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1955. In his later political life, he was Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the U.S. Treasury Secretary during the first two years of the Clinton administration.

Bentsen was born in Mission in Hidalgo County in south Texas; his parents were Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Sr., a first-generation Danish American, and the former Edna Ruth Colbath. Bentsen was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He attended Sharyland High School. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1942 where he was a member of the Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity and the Texas Cowboys. Upon graduation, he served in the United States Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945. On November 27, 1943, he married Beryl Ann Longino, a fashion model, whom he first met in college.^{[citation needed]}

Murphy Brown is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS from November 14, 1988, to May 18, 1998, for a total of 247 episodes. The program starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television newsmagazine.

The program was well known for "torn-from-the-headlines" stories and blatant political satire. It achieved a high level of political notoriety in the 1992 presidential election when Dan Quayle mentioned the show in a campaign speech, afterwards known as the "Murphy Brown speech".

The show began in the Monday 9/8PM timeslot and remained there until its final season when it was moved to Wednesday at 8:30/7:30PM. The series finale aired in its original Monday timeslot.

Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen) is a recovering alcoholic, who, in the show's first episode, returns to the fictional newsmagazine FYI for the first time following a stay at the Betty Ford Clinic. Over forty and single, she is sharp-tongued and hard as nails. In her profession, she is considered "one of the boys", having shattered any and all "glass ceilings" encountered during her career. Dominating the FYI news magazine, she is portrayed as one of America's hardest-hitting (though not the warmest or more sympathetic) media personalities.

William Melvin "Bill" Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks' material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy. In both his stand-up performances and during interviews, he often criticized consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and popular culture, describing them as oppressive tools of the ruling class, meant to "keep people stupid and apathetic".

Hicks was 16 years old when he started performing stand-up comedy at the Comedy Workshop in Houston, Texas, in 1978. During the 1980s he toured the United States extensively and performed a number of high profile television appearances. It was in the UK, however, where Hicks first amassed a significant fan base, packing large venues with his 1991 tour. Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. In the years after his death, his work and legacy achieved acclaim in creative circles. In 2007 he was voted the fourth-greatest stand-up comic on the UK's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups on Channel 4, and appeared again in the updated 2010 list as the fourth-greatest comic.

Sarah Louise Palin ⁱ/ˈpeɪlɨn/ (née Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency. Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two million copies. Since January 2010, she has provided political commentary for Fox News, and hosted a television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska. Five million viewers tuned in for the first episode, a record for The Learning Channel.

She was elected to Wasilla City Council in 1992 and became mayor of Wasilla in 1996. In 2003, after an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, she was appointed Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, responsible for overseeing the state's oil and gas fields for safety and efficiency. The youngest person and first woman to be elected Governor of Alaska, Palin held the office from December 2006 until her resignation in July 2009. She has since endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement, as well as several candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. From the time of her Vice Presidential nomination in 2008, Palin was considered a potential candidate for the 2012 presidential election until she announced in October 2011 that she would not run.