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Who Shot JFK?: Difference between revisions
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Americans love a [[Conspiracy Theorist]], and no good show is complete without some theory as to who really offed the 35th President of the United States, [[John F Kennedy]]. [[The Mafia]], [[Red Scare|the Russians]], [[Lyndon Johnson|LBJ]], [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]], the [[FBI]], [[The X-Files|the Cigarette-Smoking Man]], [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy|space aliens]], [[Gunman With Three Names|some lone nut with a gun]], ''additional'' gunmen, [[Star Trek the Original Series (TV)|the crew of the Enterprise NCC-1701]], [[Where's Waldo|Waldo]], [[Red Dwarf (TV)|a time-displaced version of himself]], [[Watchmen (Comic Book)|the Comedian]], [[Your Mom]], [[Beyond the Impossible|all of the above at once]] -- the number of variations on this theme, combined with the effect that it had on the American psyche, have made it a fertile ground for TV, book and film plots since the day Kennedy got shot. A good topic for a [[Seinfeldian Conversation]]. Frequently played for humor.
Incidentally, preventing the Kennedy assassination, or finding out who ''really'' did it, seems to be the second-biggest pastime of time travellers (the biggest being causing that of [[
[[Truth in Television]], as this is a perennial topic for conspiracy theorists, involving such controversies as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_bullet_theory the "magic bullet"] (see page image) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dealey_Plaza#Grassy_knoll the "grassy knoll"], aided by the murder of [[Gunman With Three Names|Lee Harvey Oswald]] by nightclub owner Jack Ruby (who was alleged by some conspiracy theorists to have mob ties) two days afterwards on live TV.
For what it's worth, in [[Real Life]] the actual motives and events behind Kennedy's death remain hotly disputed, but the 'Lone Gunman' theory remains the official version of events and, barring certain inconsistencies, the most complete and accurate according to general consensus. [[No Real Life Examples Please|We probably don't need to go any further than that.]]
{{examples
== Anime & Manga ==
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** [[Oliver Stone]]'s follow-up movie, ''[[Nixon]]'', also carried a subtext about the assassination, as it suggests that one of the things driving [[Richard Nixon]] was his sheer paranoia that "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" would be blown open by Watergate -- with "the Bay of Pigs" code for some kind of real-or-imagined responsibility that Nixon felt for his involvement in events that eventually spiraled out of control and led to the assassination. There's also a scene in 1963 where Nixon meets with some shadowy big business and Cuban exile types who urge him to run for president in 1964 and, when Nixon replies that no one's going to beat Kennedy in 1964, knowingly suggest "Suppose Kennedy don't run in '64?" The day after the meeting? November 22nd 1963.
* The sketch at the beginning of the Italian comedy film ''Tre uomini e una gamba'' has the three main characters (a trio of well-known Italian comedy actors) as bumbling Mafia goons who are revealed to be the ones who shot Kennedy. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjHjKYOUip8 See here].
* In ''[[Armageddon (Film)|Armageddon]]'' (the [[Bruce Willis (Creator)]] movie), not even [[The End of the World As We Know It|The Impending End Of The World As We Know It]] could make the government cough up this secret. Of course, it might have been that not even the government actually knew.
* ''The Wrong Guy'' gets a honorable mention for its offside proposal of the No Bullet Theory.
{{quote| '''Hitchhiker:''' His head just did that.}}
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== Literature ==
* ''[[Stephen King]]'''s ''[[Eleven Twenty Two Sixty Three (Literature)|Eleven Twenty Two Sixty Three]]'', deals with Jake Epping, a man from 2011, attempting to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|prevent the assassination of Kennedy]] by [[Time Travel|going back in time]]. He has five years in which to do it (he can only go back to September 9, 1958), but he refuses to make a move against Oswald until he can be as sure as he can that Oswald was the lone gunman. He'd be wasting his time if the conspiracy theorists were correct and Oswald was just a piece that could be replaced. {{spoiler|King's version of events dismisses the conspiracy theories; Oswald is acting alone and independently. Jake and Sadie manage to distract him just as he fires the first shot. It goes wide and the assassination is prevented. Then [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]] when Jake returns to 2011 and finds that [[
* ''The [[Illuminatus]]! Trilogy'' had a field day with this; Oswald is about to shoot when he spots the man on the grassy knoll, who in turn is about to shoot when he sees a rifle poking out of a sewer grate, who in turn...
** In its entirety, there was Oswald in the book depository, Harry Coin at the sewer at the Triple Underpass, a mafia gunman on the roof of a nearby restaurant, [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy|John Dillinger]] (one out of five) on the Grassy Knoll, and a fifth man behind ''him'', who actually shot the fatal shots. Motive? Kennedy's speech about the final frontier made the stock prices of "Blue Sky Inc." skyrocket, just after the man had sold all his shares.
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* Parodied on ''[[Family Guy]]'', in a cutaway implying that Lee Harvey Oswald was a poor marksman; Oswald is cheering for Kennedy from the sixth story window when he sees a shooter on the grassy knoll about to fire on the president. Drawing a rifle, he takes aim and says "Alright, Lee, time to become an American hero!"
** [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]]: At the start of his term, President Kennedy was actually presented with a one-off JFK Pez dispenser. Debatable whether it's [[Too Soon]] or not.
** Also parodied in yet another cutaway when Brian and Stewie travel to a parallel universe in which, quoth, "Frank Sinatra never used his influence to get Kennedy elected, which led to Nixon botching the Cuban Missile Crisis", resulting in a completely vaporized Quahog. When Brian asks who Lee Harvey Oswald shot, Stewie casually replies "[[
{{quote| '''Brian''': (''sarcastic'') That joke's not in poor taste.<br />
'''Stewie''': Who cares, [[What Measure Is a Non
* Parodied in ''[[Robot Chicken]]'', in which a mongoose with a sniper rifle does the job.
* In ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', [[Conspiracy Theorist]] super-hero [[The Question]] is being tortured for information after he stole computer files from a secret government organization plotting against the superheroes of the world. When questioned with "What do you know?" he responds with this gem: "There ''was'' a magic bullet. It was forged by [[Illuminati]] mystics to prevent us from learning ''the truth''!"
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** In another episode, Professor Frink attempts to implicate Marge in the assassination, showing a courtroom a film of the assassination and pausing on a frame when what appears to be Marge's distinctive hairdo can be seen in the background.
* Dale on ''[[King of the Hill]]'' is obsessed with basically all conspiracy theories, so it's no shock that this is one of his favorites. He calls the Warren Commission Report his favorite fairy tale, and reads it to his son as a bedtime story. But, one fateful day, when he looks over his detailed scale model and finds he reversed a direction, he comes to a horrific realization: it all makes sense. The Warren Commission Report, what he had previously believed to be laughably impossible, makes perfect, logical, consistent sense. This triggers a bout of depression, a trip to Dallas to see for himself, a run in with a helpful and polite policeman, and a reversal of his seething anti-government views - until Hank needs his paranoid knowledge of local officials and their private details to fix a troubling bureaucracy snafu.
** Apparently, Dale had been confusing East and West [[Too Dumb to Live|his entire life]]. Going from that point of view, the Warren Commission's report ''does in-fact'' make perfect sense, so it's hard to imagine how Dale ever believed the conspiracy in the first place. [[Know
* Subverted on [[Duckman]]. Coming face to face with the leader of a conspiracy, the leader explains all the 20th Century events they're responsible for. When asked about JFK, he just says that ''was'' a lone gunman.
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[[Category:Who Shot JFK]]
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