OJ Simpson dies
- Thread starter Kyriakos
- Start date
Klaus Hergersheimer
Emperor
I only saw him in the Naked Gun movies >_>
not really into football
not really into football
Is boredom too inappropriate a response?
Twenty years ago the trial was happening and I was a fourth-grader who began to hate him and the news in general because people wouldn't shut up about him.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Without OJ Simpson we wouldn't have gotten any of these Norm MacDonald jokes, not to mention the resulting SNL firing and the hilarity that followed.. It's what I remember the most about OJ Simpson
Due to the language and at times adult themes I have put the youtube video behind spoiler tags
Spoiler :
Due to the language and at times adult themes I have put the youtube video behind spoiler tags
Jimminiy cricket, I sometimes forget I'm almost 40.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Wait, this isn't the guy that appears in this crazy Leslie Nielsen movie? He interprets the injured police that suffers all kind of disgraces.
I never had any impression of Simpson as an athlete. I do remember him being in a bunch of movies I saw (wasn't he in The Towering Inferno? Or am I thinking of someone else?).
Princess Diana was someone who captured the public imagination of a "commoner" (which she actually wasn't; she was in the line of succession in her own right, if umpteen hundred other people died first) being swept away by the handsome prince. To the public, especially the American public, she had it all - youth (she was 11-12 years younger than Charles), glamor, beauty, fame, a certain bit of power within her own circle (people did get promoted, dropped, hired or fired on her say-so, depending on how some situations went), and even a couple of handsome young children. When she and Charles went on tours, she's the one people came to see more than him.
As the years went by and Charles' indiscretions with Camilla came to light, Diana was seen as the betrayed young princess (true to some extent, but she wasn't innocent in that regard either) who was being treated horribly by the "stiff upper lip" attitudes of the rest of the family.
As for how her death affected me... I remember that night when my dad was watching TV and came in, saying she'd been killed. At first I thought he was joking, but nope - it was all over the news. EVERY channel.
Way back in 1981, the theatre company I was working with did a "mock Royal Wedding" for the local parade that summer. They had the tech people participate in it, figuring that we didn't get a chance to be on stage during the musicals, but wouldn't it be fun if we could dress up and play the members of the Royal Family? No singing or dancing required, just put on a fancy gown, hat, and long gloves and walk 3 MILES in wedge sandals... No, I didn't play Diana. I was one of the other members of the wedding party. But it was a blast, even though I couldn't walk for the next couple of days.
We had a double decker bus following us, and the person playing the Queen Mother had even supplied a real corgi. "Lord Snowden" would have us gather every block and a half or so for a "family portrait" and then we'd quickly get back into position and keep walking. We ended up winning the grand prize in the parade, and one of the organizers sent a photo and the writeup from the local paper to the Queen. It's so surreal to think that somewhere in Buckingham Palace (or wherever they keep this sort of thing sent in by the public), there's a picture of my 18-year-old self in a lacy white gown, long white gloves, and fancy summer hat.
So many years later, when Diana died, I was reminded of this parade experience, and felt sad for the two kids. Imagine being 13 years old and forced to walk along a parade route behind your own mother's coffin.
It's actually rather amusing to Commonwealth country citizens to hear Americans (in general) praising themselves for getting rid of royalty, not bowing and scraping to any king or queen... but then you (general 'you') go ahead and create the equivalent out of actors, singers, athletes, and politicians.
My biggest impression of O.J. Simpson, other than the movies that didn't make much impression? "GET THIS CRAP OFF MY TV AND STOP PRE-EMPTING MY SOAP OPERAS!"
Seriously, it's INSANE how they thought people had nothing better to watch every damn day than nonstop coverage of Simpson being "chased". Being arrested. The trial that never got anywhere. Honestly, people were writing in to the soap magazines, saying, "Why can't they just put a summary on the nightly news? We don't care about the minute-by minute garbage!"
So now, if there's an afterlife, he can go be annoying there. But I suppose my soap will still be pre-empted for his friggin' funeral.
Princess Diana was someone who captured the public imagination of a "commoner" (which she actually wasn't; she was in the line of succession in her own right, if umpteen hundred other people died first) being swept away by the handsome prince. To the public, especially the American public, she had it all - youth (she was 11-12 years younger than Charles), glamor, beauty, fame, a certain bit of power within her own circle (people did get promoted, dropped, hired or fired on her say-so, depending on how some situations went), and even a couple of handsome young children. When she and Charles went on tours, she's the one people came to see more than him.
As the years went by and Charles' indiscretions with Camilla came to light, Diana was seen as the betrayed young princess (true to some extent, but she wasn't innocent in that regard either) who was being treated horribly by the "stiff upper lip" attitudes of the rest of the family.
As for how her death affected me... I remember that night when my dad was watching TV and came in, saying she'd been killed. At first I thought he was joking, but nope - it was all over the news. EVERY channel.
Way back in 1981, the theatre company I was working with did a "mock Royal Wedding" for the local parade that summer. They had the tech people participate in it, figuring that we didn't get a chance to be on stage during the musicals, but wouldn't it be fun if we could dress up and play the members of the Royal Family? No singing or dancing required, just put on a fancy gown, hat, and long gloves and walk 3 MILES in wedge sandals... No, I didn't play Diana. I was one of the other members of the wedding party. But it was a blast, even though I couldn't walk for the next couple of days.
We had a double decker bus following us, and the person playing the Queen Mother had even supplied a real corgi. "Lord Snowden" would have us gather every block and a half or so for a "family portrait" and then we'd quickly get back into position and keep walking. We ended up winning the grand prize in the parade, and one of the organizers sent a photo and the writeup from the local paper to the Queen. It's so surreal to think that somewhere in Buckingham Palace (or wherever they keep this sort of thing sent in by the public), there's a picture of my 18-year-old self in a lacy white gown, long white gloves, and fancy summer hat.
So many years later, when Diana died, I was reminded of this parade experience, and felt sad for the two kids. Imagine being 13 years old and forced to walk along a parade route behind your own mother's coffin.
It's actually rather amusing to Commonwealth country citizens to hear Americans (in general) praising themselves for getting rid of royalty, not bowing and scraping to any king or queen... but then you (general 'you') go ahead and create the equivalent out of actors, singers, athletes, and politicians.
My biggest impression of O.J. Simpson, other than the movies that didn't make much impression? "GET THIS CRAP OFF MY TV AND STOP PRE-EMPTING MY SOAP OPERAS!"
Seriously, it's INSANE how they thought people had nothing better to watch every damn day than nonstop coverage of Simpson being "chased". Being arrested. The trial that never got anywhere. Honestly, people were writing in to the soap magazines, saying, "Why can't they just put a summary on the nightly news? We don't care about the minute-by minute garbage!"
So now, if there's an afterlife, he can go be annoying there. But I suppose my soap will still be pre-empted for his friggin' funeral.
Narz
keeping it real
First lesson than $ trumps all & that cops and courts are incompetent (altho I already knew that from age 15)
I was @ this crazy boarding school and we had no idea what was happening in the world but somehow we got to follow this news. I remember a few of the black kids were celebrating when he was declared not guilty.
As if OJ got anything to do with them anymore than me and Jeff Bezos are kindred spirits.
I was @ this crazy boarding school and we had no idea what was happening in the world but somehow we got to follow this news. I remember a few of the black kids were celebrating when he was declared not guilty.
As if OJ got anything to do with them anymore than me and Jeff Bezos are kindred spirits.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 26,847
I used to read about his career when I was young. OJ had an exceptional NFL career. HOFer and the first running back to rush for 2000 yards in a season, and that was when an NFL season had only 14 games. He had some high-profile commercials like Hertz, after his sports career, and then started acting in movies and TV shows which kept him in the public eye. All this was well before the murders. Well, I think the last Naked Gun movie came out shortly before the murders, but his sports career ended almost 20 years before. His acting career was not much to write home about but did serve to compound his fame and keep him in the public eye over the years. His Naked Gun character was pretty hilarious but more due to the physical comedy and how it was written - he was basically like a Stooge and did not speak much.
I admired him a lot when I was young, before the murders - how he rose up from his background and his storied sports career. Of course, he clearly did the murders and was likely a narcissist with an ego through the roof.
(edit: hmm...apparently he was acting all the way back to his college years...I did not know that)
I admired him a lot when I was young, before the murders - how he rose up from his background and his storied sports career. Of course, he clearly did the murders and was likely a narcissist with an ego through the roof.
(edit: hmm...apparently he was acting all the way back to his college years...I did not know that)
Last edited:
Klaus Hergersheimer
Emperor
ouch. good segue, btw!
US news (wildly unnecessarily, in retrospect) played up the trial as some race thing when it really wasn't. At the time, I'll never forget this one clip of these black students screaming when they learned of the acquittal and never understanding just why that was...Payback for what happened to Rodney King? I don't know.
- Add to this the insistence that cameras be placed in the courtroom. It might have been unprecedented at the time. idk?
- Also add to this the insistence that the LA police cleared the freeway so OJ could drive around aimlessly in circles for hours to avoid his official arrest, garnering the attention of the whole city.
A very sad time in media history.
From an AP article in my local paper:
"The connections between the Simpson saga and today aren’t hard to find.
Judges and lawyers in high-profile cases are now regular fodder for the spotlight. One of Simpson’s attorneys, Robert Kardashian, paved the way for the next generation of his family to change the very face of how celebrity operates. A local Los Angeles TV reporter who covered the case, Harvey Levin, went on to establish TMZ, a luridly foundational pillar of modern multiplatform celebrity coverage — and the outlet that broke the news of Simpson’s death."
"The connections between the Simpson saga and today aren’t hard to find.
Judges and lawyers in high-profile cases are now regular fodder for the spotlight. One of Simpson’s attorneys, Robert Kardashian, paved the way for the next generation of his family to change the very face of how celebrity operates. A local Los Angeles TV reporter who covered the case, Harvey Levin, went on to establish TMZ, a luridly foundational pillar of modern multiplatform celebrity coverage — and the outlet that broke the news of Simpson’s death."
Similar threads
