Andy Rooney's Lost His Mind

Andy Rooney's lost his mind. This is a phrase I often used in high school when I started specifically setting aside a section of my Sunday evenings to watch Andy Rooney's persuasive essays on "60 Minutes". Imagine having a sectioned off segment on national network television where you had complete editorial freedom to tell millions of viewers anything you wanted. Any issue you felt strongly about, any cause you wanted people to get behind, any product you wanted to promote, anything you wanted to say about anything. Such power is rarely to be found anywhere in all of human history. Andy Rooney has this power. Andy Rooney uses this power to emit the aural equivalent of watching paint dry.

There's some evidence that he used to actually have valid opinions on things and used to write valid TV essays. I remember in 7th grade we had to read one of his essays where he espoused the many advantages of writing a letter as opposed to calling someone on the phone. I remember him making some really good points and the piece did get me thinking. However, I think after about the second or third decade of doing this, he must have run out of all meaningful opinion and slipped, slowly but surely, into the realm of shocking insanity.

Which brings me to why I started watching his "essays" every Sunday. Every Sunday he uses his platform on national television to do something so idiotic that it defies both explanation and belief. I can honestly say, "One time I watched Andy Rooney literally take clothes out of his closet and talk about them for 5 minutes and that was it". No one would believe me but it's a true story. "One time I saw Andy Rooney list the utensils in his kitchen." "In a dream?" "No, that really happened." "One time Andy Rooney's essay consisted of emptying his mailbox and talking about the letters he had received." That really happened. One time Andy Rooney used the mass media of television to deliver a speech so devoid of rational thought that it made my brain shut down and I blacked out.

The worst part, for me, is that all the while that he's spouting nonsense, he compounds the pain by asking "biting" and "rhetorical" questions that are very easily answerable. "What do they do with platinum anyway?", he says in one segment. LOOK IT UP AND STOP WASTING AIR TIME!!! "What in the world does 'sub-prime' mean?" OPEN A BOOK, JACKASS! "I don't understand what 'vamped' means so how could I understand what revamped means?" I HOPE NOAH WEBSTER RISES FROM THE GRAVE TO STAB YOU!

Is it comforting or horrifying, then, that we can know that even in the event of a worldwide nuclear holocaust, Andy Rooney will endure?

Post-Apocalyptic Andy Rooney

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