Last night on Anderson Cooper 360, I thought (for a moment) that I was hearing the first mumbling words of a media giant, reawakening after decades of a coma.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/11/acd.01.html
Cooper started trashing the other networks for their nonstop coverage of the Aruba-Holloway non-story. Clip after clip showed O'Reilly, Sustern, Cosby etc. blathering mindless nothings about a nothing story.
Alright! Maybe CNN will re-focus on what people need to know, and how to get critically important issues in front of the electorate, and present intelligent, reasoned debate on international issues, and... Naaaaaaaaaaaah!
No, the next line was the teaser informing me that the next segment would feature the cabbie who just nabbed "Bonnie & Clyde," and former Scientology members who would tell us what they think is going on with Tom Cruise.
Damn - they really had me going there.
So of course I immediately thought of the classic Steve Martin bits from 1978 Saturday Night Live, "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber" and "Medieval Judge."
William: Hello, Theodoric of York. Well, it's springtime, and I've come for my haircut and bloodletting.
Theodoric of York: Hello, William, Son of Malcolm the Tanner. Have a seat. Brungilda, you start on William's hair, and I'll open a vein here.
[snip]
Theodoric of York: [ steps toward the camera ] Wait a minute. Perhaps she's right. Perhaps I've been wrong to blindly folow the medical traditions and superstitions of past centuries. Maybe we barbers should test these assumptions analytically, through experimentation and a "scientific method". Maybe this scientific method could be extended to other fields of learning: the natural sciences, art, architecture, navigation. Perhaps I could lead the way to a new age, an age of rebirth, a Renaissance! [ thinks for a minute ] Naaaaaahhh!
Take a walk down memory lane:
http://snl.jt.org/char.php?i=590
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/77/77rtheodoric.phtml