I think that when Jeri talks about not liking to see people being made fools of, she hits on a really fundamental thing about Andy's humor, and that is that he played off of the fact that, whether we like it or not, we accept most all of what we see and hear on TV as being real, and when we do, we are being made fools of--

Take the Dick Cheney thing (Rick mentioned him above, so this is not thread creep)--the man suffered a second heart attack and required surgery, yet two days later, he was happy, strong, and healthy on TV--

My father in law suffered a similar heart attack two and a half years ago, went to the hospital, no surgery needed, was examined, held for observation, then released, with a series of follow-ups and ongoing support and therapy--one week later, he collapsed and was dead before anyone could even reach him--Statistically, the chances are of a second, fatal heart attack are very high, and yet we are all relieved and reassured that Cheney's trouble is past because he looked good on TV, and they told us he was OK--

His humor worked off of the fact that in our mass media world, we get sucked into things because we accept them at face value, when they are really staged and contrived--and sooner or later, we become the victim--

A lot of people are doing Andy-type humor, partly because he was a great entertainer, but also because he had hit on one of the fundamental facts about the world that we live in--