Old Standbys

It's Sunday night, a time for rest, relaxation, and comforting ritual; what better occasion to trot out this venerable jazz standard:  "My god, the cast of 60 Minutes is old." 

In the year 2000, there was a movie about sending old people into space, not to get rid of them, but so they could actually accomplish a mission.  This movie was considered a comedy, there's something inherently funny and outlandish about old people being productive, but the cast of 60 Minutes, while laughably old, is no joke; somehow, these geriatrics consistently accomplish their mission by producing a good show.

 

Unlike Space Cowboys, 60 Minutes is actually worth watching.

Here's a look at the birth dates of the key players in the show's current lineup:

Scott Pelley - July 28, 1957  (age 52)

Steve Kroft - August 22, 1945  (age 64)

Lesley Stahl  - December 16, 1941 (age 68)

Bob Simon - May 29, 1941  (age 68)

Morley Safer - November 8, 1931 (age 78)

Andy Rooney  - January 14, 1919 (1919-01-14) (age 91)

Mike Wallace, "Correspondent Emeritus" - May 9, 1918 (1918-05-09) (age 91)

In 2006, the show lost Ed Bradley; usually the hip, edgy guy dies of a drug overdose, on 60 Minutes, it was leukemia at age 65.

Whenever people ask "how do old people manage to have sex with each other", the answer is always that "its all relative";  in the middle of an episode of 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl starts to look pretty good.  Then again, maybe its that she so often looks like she's listening intently; a guy can go years without seeing this expression in his day-to-day life. Its telling when you hear these stories about "high-class" prostitutes, where the girls will say that many of their clients just wanted to talk; even for these powerful men, the idea of someone actually caring to hear their thoughts remains a fantasy they have to pay for.

 If each episode of 60 Minutes was a level on a video game, the end-guy would be Andy Rooney; you enter his lair, he throws bombs, and you just try to stay out of the way.  In the world of 60 Minutes, he's earned this position not by being the biggest and baddest, but being the most crotchety.   To look at him, you'd think he'd feel secure in his station, yet he seems to feel the need to constantly reassert that he's the most ancient motherfucker in the room, dropping dates the way social-climbers drop names, saying things along the lines of "my desk is older than your mother, and I made it by hand on my 50th birthday."

Steadfast in his refusal to trim his eyebrows, he wears them like a badge of honor, the way a mixed martial artist sports a cauliflower ear.  

Andy doesn't always have the most original subject matter, but he's done over 1000 essays for the show, so its to be expected; to quote the man himself, "good ideas are overrated. It makes more difference how a writer handles an idea than what the idea was in the first place. The world is filled with people with good ideas and very short of people who can even rake a leaf. I'm tired of good ideas."