I think it was Clive Anderson who pointed out that what we need is a contemporary wit to whom to attribute witticisms. I mean, if something is timelessly witty, you can attribute it to Oscar Wilde, or if it’s just a trifle more modern, you can attribute it to Winston Churchill, or Groucho Marx, or if it absolutely had to be said by a woman, Dorothy Parker. But if it’s got a fax machine or a Segway in it, it will sound odd. So we need someone new.
Because it really does sound better if you begin the line about blogs being like hemorrhoids with ‘wasn’t it Nick Hornby who said...”
Whoever it is should really be young enough to last for a few more technological advances. It was, after all, Bill Cosby who said that blogs were like hemorrhoids (no it wasn’t), but you would never believe that Bill Cosby made the comment about iPods and eyecontact. That was Eddie Izzard. No, it wasn’t.
It wasn’t Clive Anderson, either, who made the observation I started off with. It was Stephen Fry. He was also my nominee for the Official Wit, for a while, but I’ve gone right off him. Wasn’t it Jon Stewart who said that Stephen Fry would rather talk about his mistakes than anybody else’s achievements? No, that was Clive Anderson.
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
You leave off Bill Maher, Jerry Seinfeld, and of course Dennis Miller as possible candidates.
The trouble with Jon Stewart, as with Leno and Letterman, is that it’s hard to know what was actually written by him. Our contemporary wits are written for more often than they are writers themselves.