Who's in Charge Here?: Campaign Edition

1980, possibly first edition, from Ballantine
Gerald Gardner
Who's in Charge Here?: Campaign Edition
Original price $2.95, purchase price $1.95
Worn paperback
C+

This collection of pictures of politicians and their families, with comic-strip dialogue balloons superimposed, definitely has more historical interest than humor.  It's not simply that the jokes are dated, but some of them probably weren't that funny to begin with.  The best joke is on the cover, and it actually was funnier ca. 1987 than 1980.
OFFSTAGE VOICE [REPORTER?]:  You said that you'd resign if your memory ever started to go.
RONALD REAGAN:  When did I say that?

Gardner's first Who's in Charge Here? book came out in 1962, but this is the oldest one I own.  In my youth, I think the idea of anyone making fun of politicians was enough to appeal to me.  Gardner's humor is pretty gentle, possibly because of the era of humor he started in.  (He also wrote several Monkees episodes.)  The back cover shows not only Reagan and Carter but John Anderson, and I'll give Gardner kudos for being an equal-opportunity mocker in the book.  Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Teddy Kennedy also crop up fairly often.  Mondale is in there a couple times, his best line, again better with hindsight, is "If he loses, I'm out of work."