America’s favorite curmudgeon has lodged his last complaint.
From Reuters:
Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator who pondered everything from shoelaces to the existence of God on CBS’s “60 Minutes” news show for more than 30 years, died on Friday night at the age of 92, CBS said.
Rooney, a four-time Emmy winner, died one month after he had signed off from “60 Minutes” in October, concluding a 33-year run. A statement on CBS News’ website said he died in a New York hospital of complications following minor surgery.
Rooney was a fixture on Sunday night television, closing out the “60 Minutes” broadcast with a short rant in his “A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney” segment. Sitting in his cluttered office at a desk he made himself, Rooney delivered more than 1,000 such essays, holding hold forth on a range of topics of varying degrees of relevance.
Adjectives like crusty, cranky and crabby frequently were attached to Rooney as he took critical looks at topics such as breakfast cereals or salad dressing, often with the overriding sentiment that things just weren’t as good as they used to be.
But, peering out from under his bushy white eyebrows, Rooney also analyzed presidents, critiqued the Iraq war and considered North Korea’s nuclear threat. His commentaries won three Emmy Awards.
It’s tempting from our 21st-century platform to make fun of Rooney, and his long-running list of grievances against modern American society, but consider this: The man able to do what he loved for his entire life, up to a month before he died. How many of us will be able to say the same of ourselves?
In a tribute to the man, we present our favorite entry into the Andy Rooney Game ever:
OK, and one more, for posterity:
