TELEVISION - Dec. 3, 1991

No Virginia, There Isn’t: In this week’s TV Guide, CBS’ curmudgeon-like commentator Andy Rooney says he would have written “There is no Santa Claus, Virginia,” in response to that famous letter to the New York Sun in 1897. “The sooner you give up on the idea that you can get something for nothing and learn to make it on your own, the better off you’ll be. Forget the fairy tales,” says Rooney. He also notes that “our early indoctrination in ideas like Santa Claus is what leads people to buy lottery tickets at odds of several million to one.” Rooney doesn’t even believe Virginia wrote the letter, and suggests her father did because a reference to “little friends” is unlikely from an 8-year-old.