View From the Phlipside Radio - Andy Rooney

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

A few minutes about Andy Rooney.  America’s leading grumpy old man offered his last cantankerous commentary on the CBS news program 60 Minutes this week.  It was a long a line of commentaries, 1,097 to be precise.  And he covered a wide range of topics in the 30 plus years that he did it.  I never realized that the commentaries at the end of the program began as a summer replacement for the old Point/Counterpoint debate segments between Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick (of which Saturday Night Live would create an iconic parody).  Rooney was so popular that they soon alternated weeks and within two years Point/Counterpoint was history.

It’s worth noting that Rooney’s history should include more than just his “Few Minutes” crank fests.  Rooney began as a writer for “Stars and Stripes” the U.S. military’s newspaper.  As a correspondent he flew with the Air Force on the first bombing mission over Germany during the Second World War and was one of the first correspondents into the Nazi death camps.  After the war he wrote for Arthur Godfrey and then for CBS News.  He’s written news, documentaries and more.  Rooney has 3 Emmy awards plus a Lifetime Achievement award and a Peabody award on his mantle piece.

As with anyone who makes a practice of commenting on the world at large Rooney has stepped on some toes.  He’s had run ins with the LGBT and the Black communities.  Rooney, a self acknowledged atheist, has taken consistent shots at the concepts of God and faith.  Kurt Cobain fans took exception to his comments following the grunge rocker’s suicide.

But that comes with the territory when you offer an opinion.  When Rooney went over the line he generally apologized.  And that’s a good practice for a commentator too.  It never hurts to be reminded that we are human.  Rooney says that first and foremost he is a writer and that a writer’s job is always to tell the truth.  Whether the truth had to do with doors (the topic of his first ever on air essay/commentary back in 1964), sports mascots or types of milk Andrew Aitken Rooney has brought a biting sense of satire to America’s Sunday evenings.  

It’s easy to satirize America’s Favorite Curmudgeon but we are a little bit less now that we lost his three minutes of nasal, crotchety commentary.

Call that the View From the Phlipside