Does anybody remember Morton Downey Jr.?

[grumpyduck]

I just looked him up online and found this quote about him:

The Washington Post wrote about him, "Suppose a maniac got hold of a talk show. Or need we suppose?" David Letterman said, "I'm always amazed at what people will fall for. We see this every ten or twelve years, an attempt at this, and I guess from that standpoint I don't quite understand why everybody's falling over backwards over the guy."

Seems those ten or twelve years are here again...

[SummerSnow]

1. I remember him very well, I use to watch his show

[Va Lefty]

2. H. L. Mencken quote...

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

[Floyd R. Turbo]

3. Yep! Total asshole!

A few years ago I saw a documentary about him titled Evocateur.

[LeftInTX]

9. Saw it too!

[Mike Nelson]

4. He was unique...

.... I would describe him as his generation's "Howard Stern" - I disliked both. He chain-smoked and yelled during his talk show. I had roommates who insisted on watching him... he was awful.

[hlthe2b]

5. I remember the carved (but backwards) swastika he dug into his forehead to claim anti-semitic attack

when things had gone sour and he wasn't getting the attention he craved.

Despicable one, that one

[tazkcmo]

6. A human car wreck

And America loves them some gore!

[Mr. Ected]

7. I seem to remember he was a pro-life advocate that once ran for Prez...as a Democrat!

He was also a pro-smoker advocate until he changed gears when he contracted lung cancer, which ultimately killed him.

He was the original shock jock.

[zaj]

8. Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram... Fox News is the Maniac Network

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Lung cancer got him in 2001, I see.

I vaguely knew the name, had to look him up, since it turns out he was on tv back when I was in one of my no tv periods.

Jerry Springer, tho...I have seen a few times. Yucck.

[blake2012]

11. I hated him. Utterly detestable.

He was on around the time Rush Limbaugh flames out on TV.

[rsdsharp]

12. He started out as a disc jockey.

In February 1964 he was working at KDEO in San Diego when he and his wife had a baby girl. There is an aircheck online when he continually refers to his newborn daughter as "It."