Andy Rooney Critic Hears the Voice of the People

Ever since I wrote that “60 Minutes” would be better off without Andy Rooney, and he challenged my column on the air, I have learned many things.

I have learned from Andy’s fans that I have rocks in my head. I have learned that I’m a jerk, a loser and an idiot, not to mention “a crumb that should be swept off the AP floor.”

Andy’s fans have instructed me that if I don’t like what I’m watching, I should just change the channel. I should keep my negative opinions to myself (though that might hang me up as a TV critic). I should be fired for my rudeness anyhow.

Each more helpful than the one before it, these tips came from people who made no secret of the fact they never actually saw my Rooney column that so set them off. But who could blame them for their abstention? As George A. de Holczer of Bloomingdale, N.J., explained: “I do not like to contaminate my mind with trash.”

I may not soon win over De Holczer, any more than I will change the mind of Ponca City, Okla., resident Eddie Davis, who declared, “I never heard of you, but I’m sure I wouldn’t like you.”

Even so, I want to reassure anyone who does manage to read this that I’m a reasonably likable guy. Besides, of the 150 columns I write in a year, most are pretty nice.

The Rooney column? Granted, not too bullish. But you might say I criticized a critic who himself is often critical of others. Why isn’t that fair play?

Yet Rooney seemed to hate it when the tables were turned and issued an on-air rebuttal.

“Mr. Moore says I act too old and should retire,” Rooney told 22.5 million “60 Minutes” viewers during his March 31 commentary, just before inviting them to write or phone me with their feelings on the matter.

“Wait,” I thought to myself, “I didn’t really say that.”

Never mind. A moment later, phone lines were jammed at the Associated Press number Rooney had given out.

*

The next few hours and days smacked of the film “Network” after anchorman Howard Beale beseeched his audience to tell the world “I’m as mad as hell” and the next moment people were calling out their windows.

But this time, the people were on the outside calling in. To us. And there were 7,000 of them before it was over. On top of that, a couple of crates’ worth of cards and letters.

So what is the upshot of this survey? I can confidently say that among the viewers who responded to his sea-to-shining-sea appeal, plenty of them love Andy Rooney. A much smaller number wish he’d go away. Pro-Andy: lots. Anti-Andy: not so many. Consider that the official count.

No, I may not be Price Waterhouse. But I can tell you that from every state, of every age, with every accent, callers rang us up to exercise their franchise. “Keep Andy!” “Get rid of Andy!” Thus did thousands cast their votes with our tireless operators.

Others held on for my phone line. The answering machine they met with seldom had a moment’s rest as one tape after another was consumed by Rooney balloting.

At my desk as I tried to do my work--which, remember, isn’t polling--I would listen with one ear to the messages coming in. Andy Rooney this. Andy Rooney that. Would it drive me insane?

I heard Rooney’s detractors brand him “a whiner,” “irrelevant” and “an intolerant nonvisionary.” Phoning from Rhode Island, Abe Nathanson called for Rooney to step aside “not because he’s too old, but because he’s singularly not amusing.”

But I heard many, many others hail Rooney’s segment as the high point of the program. Refreshing. Witty. Perceptive. As an Ontario caller put it: “ ’60 Minutes’ without Andy Rooney would be like a foot without a big toe.”

“You’re way off base,” callers told me over and over--almost as often as they told me, “Get a life!” I haven’t heard “you’re wrong” so many times since the year I took Latin.

Humbling? A little. But to all the people who tweaked me with “I never heard of Frazier Moore,” I can say: Now you have.

But that’s TV for you. Meanwhile, Andy Rooney has left me with yet another legacy, one even more peculiar than my instant, fleeting fame: thousands of impassioned responses to a survey I never commissioned.