Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Let there be snark.

This fight is for everything.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

You are here: Home / Music / Andy Williams RIP

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  1. 1.

    shortstop

    Now you’re going to get about 100 outraged outbursts from superannuated commenters, which was your intent, of course. Carry on.

  5. 5.

    shortstop

    Just remember, Ethel Kennedy wouldn’t marry him because she wanted to be eternally linked with Bobby. Uh huh.

  8. 8.

    Ron Thompson

    I didn’t know until a couple years ago that he was part of a four-man brother act. Then I saw a tape from his TV show of the four of them singing a song, all dressed alike.

    Gives me the heeby-jeebies jest thinkin’ about it.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    Andy Williams had this recurring sketch on his TV show from the 1960s: a bear (well, a guy in a bear suit) would knock on his cabin door in the middle of a snowy night. Andy’d answer the door in his long nightshirt, and after the bear pestered him for a cookie would reply indignantly, “Not now, not tomorrow, NEVER!” That, and him having the Osmond Brothers on the show when they were in their early teens and Donny was, like, 10 years old.

  13. 13.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    He stood up for John Lennon, telling both Nixon and Hoover that they should go get fucked and stop trying to get the man deported.

    I don’t think a lot of people know that. Good guy. Good vocal delivery – always made me relaxed and sleepy, in a very good way, sort of like aural marijuana.

  14. 14.

    Surreal American

    @rlrr:

    Wait, here I thought that Andy Williams only called Obama a Marxist. Did Williams also go full Pat Boone on us as well?

  15. 15.

    flukebucket

    @rlrr: I didn’t know Andy was a birther. But it makes sense when you think about it. Rich, old, White. All of the ingredients are there. RIP Andy. Paddle slowly across that Moon River.

  16. 16.

    kindness

    Speaking of the ‘Olds’ here, who here watched the Saturday Night Live when they ran The Spider Sabich Ski Tournament?

    It was completely tasteless and hysterical.

    Yes I saw it then. Original cast & all.

    SNL/NBC in their wisdom has erased it from Youtube so no linkies, sorry.

  17. 17.

    FlipYrWhig

    I think this is a person whose peak celebrity I just missed. Like how I had no idea Richard Dawson had a TV career before “Family Feud” until, like, two years ago.

  18. 18.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    If you don’t listen to Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song”, The Temptations “Silent Night” and Andy Williams “O Holy Night” every holiday season, you’re letting the terrorists win.

  19. 19.

    FlipYrWhig

    @kindness: They’ve shown that clip on various sports-themed specials relatively recently. I never had any idea what they were talking about.

    ETA: And I’m 40, which I thought would qualify me for Olds status.

  20. 20.

    Raven

    While close friends with the Democratic Kennedys, Williams was a lifelong Republican.[22] On September 29, 2009, he was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as accusing President Barack Obama of “following Marxist theory” and “wanting the country to fail”.[23][24] He gave Rush Limbaugh permission to use his recording of the song “Born Free” for the theme to the “Animal Rights Update” on his Limbaugh’s radio show – in which a portion of the song is then followed by gunfire – saying “Hey, it’s fine with me. I love what you’re doing with it.” The record company later blocked Limbaugh’s use of the recording.[25]

  29. 29.

    red dog

    Well I’m 70 and qualify for the OLDS status, too bad a lot of you multi-tasking whippersnappers won’t make it this far ’cause you never just kick back and watch the rats race…it’s fun.

  30. 30.

    shoutingattherain

    “Obama is following Marxist theory,” he told The Radio Times, a British magazine. “He’s taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail.”

    I grew up liking Andy Williams. Now I hate him instantly because I hate his politics. I’ll never be able to listen to him again. It didn’t used to be like this. It really doesn’t have to be like this.

  31. 31.

    kindness

    OK, guess I’m bored at work. The actual sketch was Saturday Night Live Season 1, 4/24/76 episode 18 and it was called ‘The Claudine Longet Invitational’ and both NBC and youtube refuse to have the clip available. Anyway, back to work.

  33. 33.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Bubblegum Tate: I LOVED Claudine Longet – still have one of her albums. My husband and I drove through Wall Lake, IA just a few days ago, which made me think of Andy.

  34. 34.

    hhex65

    @kindness: Checked the Netflix version and it still has that skit in it there. Raquel Welch with musical guests Phoebe Snow & John Sebastian. They really do cut those shows up and throw things down the memory hole, episodes from 1981 are around 30 minutes long with no musical guests.

  35. 35.

    catclub

    @shoutingattherain: That IS your problem. Ty Cobb was a complete asshole, but he could play. No need to find recent examples, but Curt Schilling
    with a bloody sock jumps right up atcha.

    Similarly, I might well _agree_ with Kobe Bryant’s politics, but I hate what he does (did?) so well on the basketball court.

  37. 37.

    bobbo

    my favorite thing about Andy Williams is that he dubbed Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not.” Though the Times obit says she really did sing, at least some of it. Whoever it was certainly sounded like her.

  38. 38.

    CarolDuhart2

    Sigh. Another part of my childhood gone. First it was the folks from the Fifties (except a few survivors), the the folks from the tv shows I used to watch in the 1960’s. RIP Andy Williams. You were a good singer despite your politics.

    All that great Christmas Music will live on.

  39. 39.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    @shoutingattherain:

    I think a lot of ugliness and absurdity emerged from old white guys that even they weren’t expecting. Clint Eastwood has never, as far as I know, had never spoken out against a presidential candidate before. Chuck Norris never used to make pronouncements about “a thousand years of darkness.” Kelsey Grammer, as far as I know, never campaigned for any presidential candidates until McCain.

  42. 42.

    dSmith

    There was a young girl named Longet
    Who went down to Aspen to play
    Along came a spider
    who sat down beside her
    And she blew the poor Sabitch away.

  43. 43.

    Schlemizel

    I can never forgive him for foisting the Osmond family upon an suspecting nation.

    Nice voice – good for his time and place, certainly successful & well loved.

  45. 45.

    SBJules

    I saw the Sabitch skit on SNL. And more recently the Ann romney skit. I only liked moon river in Breakfast at breakfast in tiffany’s. I didn’t like his TV show.

  46. 46.

    Dennis SGMM

    I recall my parents watching Andy Williams’ show. This was during my extreme Young Gearhead phase so I spent most evenings working on cars. I do recall thinking that the Osmonds were the weirdest outift that I’d seen up to then.

  47. 47.

    kindness

    @Porco Rosso: I went through the SNL archives and they called the sketch ‘The Claudine Longet Invitational’. I had thought it was The Spider Sabich Ski Tournament. Hey, it’s been 36 years. I will give my brain cells a pass on it.

  49. 49.

    notoriousJRT

    Whatever Williams’ politics, I love his Moon River and many of his versions of Christmas songs (particularly It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year)

    RIP Andy

  52. 52.

    stephen benson

    i played with andy more than once during my vegas days. he was a genuinely kind man, a great performer.

    during that same time i also met and got to know claudine. i can assure you that she is a captivating, beautiful, and enchanting soul who can easily be forgiven trivial things like gut shooting a ski bum.

  53. 53.

    Scott

    Everything doesn’t have to be about politics. I grew up watching his Christmas show and listening to his music, and those memories are indelible. That was a different time, very few viewing choices on TV, and the Christmas Specials were, well, special. Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, and Andy.
    I will never feel as excited, or comforted, about Christmas as I was then.
    Thanks, Andy.

  54. 54.

    kindness

    @stephen benson:

    enchanting soul who can easily be forgiven trivial things like gut shooting a ski bum.

    What a good little liberal you are. Tell me, got any exs?

    Sorry ’bout the snark but I sure hope that comment was an over the top one & not serious. I was kind of a ski freak at the time and so Spider meant a lot to me then. He was a bad ass skier. Claudine? She was cute but she shot Spider in the stomach and let him die. The whole thing sucked. Won’t give Claudine a pass, sorry.

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