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Notes -
There’s a difference between comedy satire and making fun of someone’s death. And a lot of statements made by news media and regular media today would have been so horrific to someone living in 1960 that they would have whisked these people off the air as soon as they said some of the things they said. There’s no chance that Kimmel would have been able to mock the death of a political figure in 1964 probably not even 1974. Not necessarily that people had thin skin, but you weren’t going to stay on the air even to finish the monologue if you were doing things like that. More than likely you would end up seeing Kimmel escorted off the set and the producers apologize to the audience for that bit.
...uh...TW: Contains linked and quoted mockery of celebrity and celeb-adjacent deaths.
I'm reminded of Bob Rivers' "I Can't Ski Babe." Also "Oh God, I'm an Ocean Buoy."
Personally I'm a fan of both original songs (I liked oldies as a kid), and John Denver in general...which only makes these funnier IMO.
(Investigation found the latter was spreading misinformation, too! Like yes he did have multiple DUIs and was legally not allowed to fly at the time of the crash, but the autopsy found no sign of alcohol or other drugs. The problem was the difficulty of switching fuel tanks. That said, as an initial reaction, given the context it was a reasonable suspicion.)
:D
See also
...this was mostly just a nostalgia trip for me, but yeah this was all on radio rather than TV.
I mentioned elsewhere how I was raised that freedom of speech was more important than anything...that was partly due to the times, and that and exposure to the above type of thing on radio have shaped my worldview. In my culture, mockery of celebrity and celeb-adjacent deaths isn't shocking and I probably wouldn't notice it much. (Celeb-adjacent does feel "worse" to me, like the celeb chose to pursue attention but their family mostly didn't...)
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