Even the First Couple has been rocked by the sad news about director Harold Ramis.
On Tuesday morning, the White House Press Secretary’s office issued a statement from Barack and Michelle Obama in regards to Monday’s passing of their fellow Chicagoan:
Michelle and I were saddened to hear of the passing of Harold Ramis, one of America’s greatest satirists, and like so many other comedic geniuses, a proud product of Chicago’s Second City. When we watched his movies–from “Animal House” and “Caddyshack” to “Ghostbusters” and “Groundhog Day”–we didn’t just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings. Our thoughts and prayers are with Harold’s wife, Erica, his children and grandchildren, and all those who loved him, who quote his work with abandon, and who hope that he received total consciousness.
So he might have that going for him, which is nice.
I interviewed Ramis twice before he got sick, and both times he couldn’t have been more of a mensch–funny, too, and not easily offended. He was capable of seeing the intellect in really stupid things.
I’m sure he would have loved the Twinkies set outside the Ghostbusters firehouse in Tribeca, Manhattan. Or this tweet, warning followers not to Google-search “don’t cross the streams” for a Ramis photo “without a gay porn filter.”
Like many of you, I’ve been crushed since hearing the news. I’ve been thinking of his family, members of which I also have the privilege of knowing, who gave their constant support to Ramis in his final years. It’s hard to think about what they all went through–autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis is nothing to sneeze at–and 69 years old is hardly an expiration date that you can dismiss as foreseeable. Maybe it’s best to stay focused on his work and slacker wisdom.
I’ll leave you with this comment from my 2009 interview in which he discusses comedy today.
I don’t want to say that there’s nothing new in comedy, but having seen Andy Kaufman in the mid-70s in clubs in New York, nothing surprises me conceptually. There’s a difference between getting the joke and liking the joke. Popularity isn’t the only measure of success. Sometimes the public is an idiot, but obscurity and perversity for it’s own sake can be a solipsistic jerk-off and real waste of time. I have no rules or expectations; I just like comedy that works.
h/t WH statement via @jbendery/photo via Heeb Magazine
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