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As we've all heard, Andy Rooney has retired. But his body of work is vast, including 1,097 of his iconic 60 Minutes commentaries. I have a love-hate relationship with those commentary pieces -- I've actually watched 60 Minutes for many years, and while I'm tempted to turn it off when Rooney comes on (because it generally strikes me as "a few minutes" of crotchetiness), I generally stick around to see what cranky weirdness he's on about. Part of what makes Rooney's commentaries appealing is that they're really short -- it's easy as a figure to figure, yeah, I'll stick around for literally two or three minutes to see what this is about. Imagine my surprise when I heard about The Andy Rooney Game, a YouTube gag created by comedian Joe Mande. The formula is simple: take the first and last sentences from Rooney's segment and splice them together. This cuts Rooney's commentaries down to just a few seconds, and often conveys the gist of his message (or some unexpected juxtaposition of messages) in a tiny soundbite. Usually it's just dumb, but oftentimes it's brilliantly dumb. BEHOLD:
Junk Mail
"So keep the stuff coming."
Negativity
"And you say I'm negative about everything?"
Old Clothes
"...Where they belong."
Sleep
Way to cut to the chase.
Internet Shopping
"Andy's been out shopping."
Poor and Jobless
"We've got enough to worry about."
Surprise Party
Oh.
Fireworks
Um.
2008 Election
Decontextualization allows you to fill in whoever you think the S.O.B. is here.
The World These Days
Actually kind of touching. Happy retirement, Andy.
There are over a hundred of these on YouTube. See also: Quiz: Did Andy Rooney Really Say That? and Stuff Andy Rooney Really Did Say.
(Via Back to Work.)