Happy Birthday Jonathan Southworth Ritter!!! (September 17, 1948 – ∞)
“His brain was like a supersonic jet. You kept thinking to yourself, God, I wish I’d thought of that. Wow, how did he think of that that quickly? What you never tried to do was match his funny. I never tried to one-up him. Because it was impossible. He topped pretty much everybody. He’d tell the same joke, too. He could tell it three or four or five times a day, and it was as funny the first time as it was the last time he told it that day. Now that is a talent. What would he say? He would just put his hand up to his side like a Borscht Belt comedian and he would say, ‘Try the veal, I’m here all week.’ And he would use that phrase several times a day and several times a day it was laugh-out-loud funny. I think about him all the time. I miss him all the time.“
I will never forget the time John Ritter was on Conan (this was when Conan was Late Night with Conan on NBC a zillion years ago) and Dana Carvey was the other guest, and for some reason Ted Nugent had a cooking segment?? And he and Dana were like just fucking wild that night during the cooking part and talking about an onion was John’s balls?? it was was chaos and it was golden
On how he wants to be remembered: “Just as a guy who was interested in the golden thread that intertwines all of us together. You know, that golden thread that goes through me and you, and the cameraman, and all the people out there and back through Nancy. That’s what an artist can do, that someone – anyone – could do, if they’re willing to pluck that. And either it makes you laugh or it makes you cry, it’s that golden thread of humanity, and I’d like to be remembered as maybe a guy who plucked a few of those.”
Amber 