I will admit, I’ve always liked Andy Rooney ever since a rant a decade or so about how technology doesn’t really make things better (microwaves don’t make better food than oven, computers don’t make better writers than a typewriter, etc.). Like him or not, here he sounds off about how “funny” the funny pages are.
Hat tip: Tom Spurgeon
If anyone knows anything about not being funny, it’s Andy Rooney.
Well, he’s right about how people can’t agree on humor. I think papers need a much broader spectrum of comedy for comics and I wish everything didn’t have to be so squeaky clean (which doesn’t make sense since typically the front page is about murder or death).
This discussion (about how newspapers should change the comics) has been mentioned many times, so I’ll stop with that….
I think he’s on to something here…
1. Before anything can be done about the declining state of comic strips in newspapers, the problem is going to have to get the attention of people like Andy Rooney.
2. By April 2010, the problem will be so bad, it will be too late to do anything about it.
It’s kind of worrying. Most newspaper readers are about his age.
Almost life-like! Uncanny Valley! NICE TRY, CBS!
I have always loved Andy Rooney. I have most of his books and his insights are great. He was writing Seinfeldian comedy before Seinfeld.
I wonder if he has writers or writes everything himself?
Maybe he likes the old, old comics that don’t run any more.
Andy Rooney should have been fired about 20 years ago. So out of touch… and speaking of not funny, not witty, not smart, not clever or insightful – he’s the king of old guys whose time has past.
When a 91 year old man calls the comics page lame, that’s pretty bad.
(Love Andy Rooney. His books from the late 70s through the 80s are gold.)
heem no ees funny.
On second thought…Andy’s remarks are REALLY a slam on newspaper editors than cartoonists.
i thought he was dead
He is dead. He just doesn’t know it.
Gotta like Andy, but I still like the funnies. It seems he has his eyebrow hair under control in this one … he is funnier when it isn’t!
Most people will agree with him since most people, even cartoonists, complain about their newspaper’s comics page.
Everybody wants it to change, but they’re never happy with the change.
The comic strips aren’t always about being funny. Taken individually, there are comic strips every day in the paper that are based on old chestnuts of humor, but we treat them like a wisecracking friend that has only a few jokes he retells all the time. Being consistently funny is hard. As the famous comedian said, “Death is easy–comedy is hard.” There are only a few comic strips that make me lol as much as 2-3 times a week–Bizzaro, Strange Brew and the Lockhorns come to mind. Garfield hasn’t been funny for twenty years.