A moment with Andy Rooney

I just finished posting another lengthy comment as part of a conversation on newspapers and cultural criticism spurred by my post on the topic over the weekend. Please visit and weigh in.

Since my comments on that post ran long, I'm reminded of Andy Rooney at 60 Minutes. If you've watched Mr. Rooney lately, you may have wondered whether he's slipping into senility or just phoning it in to collect the paycheck and stick it to CBS. Several weeks ago, I swear he was pondering why milk cartons always seem to have the words "dairy" or "farm" on them. Seems obvious to me, but perhaps he was searching for a deeper meaning.

Subsequently, I ran across the Andy Rooney Game created by comedian Joe Mande. The rules of the game are simple: Condense Mr. Rooney's rants to his core message by removing everything but the first and last sentences from the segment. It will all make sense after you watch a few examples:

The Pope:


Junk Mail:


There are more of these to be found on YouTube.

To give credit where it's due, I chanced upon the Andy Rooney Game over at Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy's blog, Mad About Movies. In a recent post, I mentioned that Shawn is working on a biography of Paul Newman. A dramatic account of how he scooped the Associate Press on the news of Newman's unfortunate death can be found on his post How News Happens: Patting Self on the Back Edition.