Backward Ran the Progress Until Reeled the Mind

New Year’s Eve 1954: Frank Sinatra and Gloria Vanderbilt hit the Big Apple with maximum swank:

@andersoncooper on @Letterman – Gloria Vanderbilt y Frank Sinatra pic.twitter.com/ZvRKtNmVbt

— aidrogo77 (@aidrogo77) October 13, 2014

New Year’s Eve 2015: Desperate for ratings CNN once again teams up Anderson Cooper, Vanderbilt’s son and the network’s would-be top anchorman, with “comedienne” Kathy Griffin for maximum sleaze:

As the late Noel Sheppard wrote at NewsBusters two years ago:

Roughly eleven minutes into the program which began at 10 PM, Cooper commented about how on Twitter folks were suggesting that there should be a game that whenever he giggles nervously during the show, contestants have to take a drink.

Then, completely out of the blue, Griffin said, “I’m going to tickle your sack. You can say sack. That’s not bad.”

An obviously nervous Cooper responded, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no sack of gifts here.”

Griffin then suggested the camera pan lower so the audience can see her “naughty gestures.”

* * * * * * *
As Tuchman finished his report, Griffin in the left split-screen bent down and kissed Cooper’s crotch.

* * * * * * *
“I’m going down,” she said. “You know you want to.”

“Believe me, I really don’t,” said Cooper as he once again pulled her upright.

* * * * * * * *

Consider that during the 2009 show, Griffin dropped an F-bomb. The year before she directed a vulgar oral sex reference to a heckler. Last year she stripped down to her underwear.

Yet CNN keeps inviting her back.

Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

Say what you will about the myriad biases of Walter Cronkite — which became increasingly out there as he aged, and even more so after he left the airwaves — but at least in terms of tone, he acted the part of senior newsreader to perfection. I don’t recall him ever having an annual on-air debacle that embarrassed himself and his network. But hey, at least CNN has set the bar as low as possible to begin 2015, both for themselves and Jeff Zucker, their increasingly desparate boss, flailing as his network “Closes 2014 With All-Time Low Ratings.”

Update: Heh. But how does it play in Peoria?

Ironically, Anderson Cooper plays straight man! RT @HaroldItz: For one night a year CNN is gayer than Bravo and the Tonys combined. #CNNNYE

— RobGeorge (@RobGeorge) January 1, 2015