Quote of the Day (Andy Rooney, on Designing a Chair)

“Last summer I made a chair. The wood was maple and cherry, and I invented what kind of a chair it was as I went along. When I finished, the chair looked great, but it has one shortcoming. It tips over backwards when anyone sits in it. My design was better than my engineering.” — CBS journalist and humorist Andy Rooney (1919-2011), “Design,” originally published in The Huntington (KS) News, Apr. 2, 1980, reprinted in And More by Andy Rooney (1982)

Fifteen years ago today, Andy Rooney delivered his last of 1,097 short, 60 Minutes segments. “I wish I could do this forever. I can’t, though,” he said, acknowledging that, at age 92, his career had come to an end. He died less than five weeks later, after developing postoperative complications from an undisclosed surgical procedure.

He served as a WWII correspondent for Stars and Stripes, but made his most significant mark at CBS—first as writing and producing partner of Harry Reasoner, then as a familiar droll on-screen commentator in his own right in 33 years on 60 Minutes. 

His presence became so vivid that he was parodied by SNL’s Joe Piscopo (see this hilarious YouTube clip on “Shoes”) and Norm Macdonald, as well as Frank Caliendo (on MAD TV).

When you google Rooney’s name, there’s a good chance you will come up with some low-lights from his career, too, such as insensitive remarks on Kurt Cobain’s death or “homosexual unions.” After his death, Time Magazine weighed in on his “most ridiculous complaints” in “Top 10 Grumpiest Andy Rooney Segments.”  (One sample: “What’s a Lady Gaga?”)

Still, for someone appearing on camera every week for so long, it’s surprising that more embarrassing examples don’t turn up. (Commentators on at least one “news” channel I can think of come up with that many in just five minutes, let alone three decades.) In any case, Rooney could be rightly proud for picking up Peabody and Emmy Awards for his work.

At the height of a 1986 corporate bloodletting at his longtime network, Rooney bluntly observed, in his syndicated news column, “CBS . . . no longer stands for anything. They’re just corporate initials now.” It’s easy to imagine what he would have thought of the recent turmoil at the news division and Sunday evening institution where he labored for so long.

In fact, one person who has done so is his grandson, Ben Fishel, in a Los Angeles Times piece from June:

“Sometimes I miss the era when my grandfather could devote an entire television segment to the mysteries of his junk drawer. Those trivial subjects only seemed trivial because the foundations of democracy felt secure enough to take for granted.

“Rooney rarely made himself the story, and he was not known as a particularly political commentator. But he believed deeply in journalism and in the responsibility that comes with informing the public.

“On that issue, I do not think he would be silent today.”