Fire Andy Rooney part III

Andy Rooney's December 3rd piece is about Christmas catalogues. It is a pile of stream-of-conscious nonsense and he should be fired for writing such drivel. His words in italics:

"I get a lot of catalogs at this time of year. I never buy anything in any of them but that doesn't seem to discourage the people who send them to me because I keep getting catalogs from the same companies year after year.

I'm no marketing expert, but the fact that you are holding them up on your show that gets millions of viewers may actually be a pretty good reason for companies to continue to send them to you.

"There's one word that's never mentioned though - not once in any of these. You know what the word is?

Curmudgeon?

"The word "Christmas" is nowhere in any of these 27 catalogs I have. The word they use to replace "Christmas" is "Holiday."

I think they're actually using the term "Holiday" to encompass all of the holidays that fall in December so not to be exclusive, so they have a larger group of buyers. It's called "capitalism."

"It's funny you never hear anyone say "Merry Holiday."

And you never hear people say "Happy Christmas, while you do hear people say "Happy Hanukkah" but not "Merry Hanukkah." And of course, people do say "Happy Holidays." I don't see how the adjective we attach to a particular holiday well-wish matters one bit.

"he "Circuit City" catalog looks as if it wants to sell you a car for Christmas but the ad isn't for cars - it's for a television set. You save $300 instantly, the ad says. Does anyone really believe they save $300 instantly on anything?

My guess is that the sale price is $300.00 less than the regular retail price. So yes, if you buy the TV during the sale, you save $300.00 in a sense.

"All the prices in a lot of ads still end in 99 cents. $29.99, $49.99, $129.99. They've been doing that for years. Do you think that 99 cents stuff still works? Are we really that dumb? We don't realize that $129.99 is really $130?

The marketing people have data that suggests that yes, we are that dumb.

"The Sharper Image" offers 50 percent off on two units. What they don't tell you until down here is that one unit costs $499.95.

Are you worried that consumers will go to the store before verifying the price?

"I wonder how much they paid this nice-looking woman to stand here in her underwear while they took her picture? She probably got more this guy got for lying there in bed, pretending to be asleep.

Whatever it was, they deserved it a lot more than you deserve making whatever you make to spout this ridiculous nonsense.

"Solutions" has 162 gifts for under for under $30, in case you want 162 gifts for under $30.

Or in case you want any one of those 162 gifts for under $30.

I personally like a present better than I like a gift. A gift is apt to be something I take back.

"Gift" and "present" are synonyms. They are not different in any way.

"Monitor The Weather From Your Own Backyard." Well, I do that all the time. I stick my hand out and if it gets wet, I know its raining.

Some people would prefer to know more than what the weather is currently doing.

"1,001 Movies You Should See Before You Die." The average movie is around two hours long so I multiplied it out. It would take you about 83 24-hour days to watch all of these. That's without ever getting up to go to the bathroom, too.

Perhaps their target audience for such a list isn't cantankerous old men? I guarantee you I will watch 1,001 more movies before I die. If I live for 40 more years, that's only 25 per year.

"I don't want to sound negative about all the catalogs I get though. I look through them and really enjoy all the money I save by not buying anything from any of them.

As Martin Sheen said in Wallstreet, "money is only something you need in case you don't die tomorrow." And for you Mr. Rooney, that might not be a bad motto to start living by.

Fire Andy Rooney Part II

A while back I fisked an article Andy Rooney wrote about baseball. That post gets a lot of hits from people searching for "Andy Rooney baseball" or "Andy Rooney douchebag." I just tried to track down the original article on CBS's website and found an article that is a-a-a-a-almost the same, but a lot of the stuff I called him out on had been changed. For example, the original column said:

"Baseball has never been my game. I never liked it as a kid, probably because I could never throw a ball very well. My friends said I threw like a girl and that's enough to put any young boy off a game. As I've probably told you — after over 4,000 columns it's sometimes hard to remember what I've said before — my father took me to a Yankee game when I was about 10 years old and Joe DiMaggio struck out three times.

"My disinterest in baseball as a kid has lasted all my life. I'm still not interested in the game. I don't watch it on television or follow it in the newspaper. I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today's baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me."

The emphasis is mine. But the version on the CBS website says:

"This is the big time of year for baseball fans. I've never been much of a baseball fan myself. My father took me to a Yankees game when I was young and Joe DiMaggio struck out twice. I think that's what cooled me off on baseball. I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig but today's baseball stars are mostly unknown to me."

Emphasis mine again. So he, or CBS, took out the lie about seeing Joe D. play when he was ten (DiMaggio was first brought up to the majors when Andy Rooney was 17 and probably never struck out 3 times in one game) and the racist bit about guys named Rodriguez. Maybe he did it to cut down the word count, but I doubt it.

This just bugs me. This guy has no sense of decency.