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Jewish World Review March 6, 2002 / 22 Adar, 5762

Andy Borowitz

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Consumer Reports

Dennis Miller takes obscure, hard-to-understand parting shot at ABC



Fired 'Monday Night Football' Comic's Rant Full of Puzzling Cultural References

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Comedian Dennis Miller, fired from ABC's "Monday Night Football" last week, lashed out at ABC Sports today in a blistering tirade packed with obscure literary and pop cultural references that may take his former bosses years to decipher.

"Hey, you guys pulled a Pete Best on me," Miller told the executives at ABC Sports. "Well, you don't need to show me the exit. Who am I, Jean Paul Sartre?"

The ABC executives begged Miller to slow down so that they could look up some of the items contained in the often-baffling comedian's trademark "rant", but Miller, seemingly undeterred, soldiered on in the same arcane vein.

"When I heard you were replacing me with Madden, I was like, isn't that the guy who played Reuben Kincaid on 'The Partridge Family?'" Miller said, in an apparent reference to football announcer John Madden and former TV actor Dave Madden.

It is believed that only three or four people in North America, excluding Miller himself, are sufficiently aware of both Maddens in order to understand, and therefore enjoy, Miller's confusing remark.

Skewering announcer Madden's use of the "telestrator" to diagram football plays, Miller said, "That guy makes more points than Georges Seurat on the Island of the Grande Jatte. Calling Stephen Sondheim!"

Miller's head-scratching salvos were only the latest in a spate of recent setbacks for ABC, who revealed today that a pickpocket lifted host Regis Philbin's wallet during last Thursday night's broadcast of the once-popular "Who Wants to be A Millionaire."

The pickpocket stole Philbin's wallet when no one was watching, ABC said.



JWR Contributor Andy Borowitz, a former president of the Harvard Lampoon, is a regular humor columnist for Newsweek.com, The New Yorker, The New York Times and TV Guide. Recognized by Esquire magazine as one of the most powerful producers in television, he was the creator and producer of the hit TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and producer of the Oscar-nominated film Pleasantville. He is the author, most recently, of "Trillionaire Next Door: The Greedy Investor's Guide to Day Trading" and "Rationalizations to Live By". Comments by clicking here. Visit his website by clicking here.

Up

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© 2002, Andy Borowitz