Late in last night’s thrilling MNF game between the Cowboys and Eagles, Tony Kornheiser took some time to apologize for something he said earlier in the broadcast, without referencing it directly. He said he was sorry for his “mistake” and says it wasn’t the first and won’t be the last one he’ll make.
But what the heck did he say? I was watching all night and hadn’t really noticed anything. Later I came to find that the offending comments were an off-the-cuff attempt at humor that Tony made after the audio had been switched briefly to the ESPN Deportes booth (while showing a replay of the kick-return TD by Felix Jones). But was it really racist? It wasn’t funny, but I’m kind of confused otherwise.
(Video of potential political incorrectness after the jump.)
Via AWFUL ANNOUNCING :
“I took high school Spanish, either he said he’s not going to be caught, or please pick up my dry cleaning tomorrow.”
So, is he saying the Latino announcer is picking up dry cleaning? Or doing the dry cleaning? Or is he just insinuating that the guy has dry cleaning that needs to be picked up by someone? But why would it be weird for a guy who speaks Spanish to be asking for that to be done in Spanish? And isn’t dry cleaning more stereotypically associated with a different ethnicity? Is there something wrong about a Latino guy saying this while watching an African-American guy run?
Whatever it was, Kornheiser felt it was necessary (or was told it was necessary) to apologize for it. Maybe he’s just sorry for his dreadful shtick that’s continually weighing down the broadcast.
Luckily, I’m not the only one who has no idea what’s going on. When you’re baffling the fine folks at OFFSHOREINSIDERS.COM, there’s no way anyone can decode your logic:
As everyone at OffshoreInsiders.com is trying to figure out what politically incorrect statement Tony Kornheiser has to apologize for—yet doesn’t have to apologize for bringing up Andy Reid’s sons legal problems… All we know is it had something to do with Mexican Independence day, which is not Cinco de Mayo.
Are dry cleaners a big part of Mexican Independence Day? Was Mexico founded by dry cleaners? Were they doing one-hour martinizing at the Alamo? Somebody help me out with this.
12:19 pm on September 16th, 2008
I think Tony has an apology quota. 1 per broadcast, on general principle.
Or at least he should.
Really, why is he there?
12:20 pm on September 16th, 2008
Apologize once and for all for the combover Tony. Please, for the love of god.
12:26 pm on September 16th, 2008
Has anyone heard if Charlie Weis accepted it?
2:02 pm on September 16th, 2008
This is so wrong - it’s the Chinese that do laundry. Unless he’s talking about sombreros.
2:14 pm on September 16th, 2008
Dude he had to apologize bc he said some homophobic stuff. The camera panned to one of the Dallas Trainers massaging someones back and he said something to the regard of “that doesn’t look so coshure” referring to it as being gay. Either way the dude sucks
7:35 pm on September 16th, 2008
Hey Big Al, its spelled “Kosher”. and don’t come back with some anti-semetic retort, it’s unncessary
Tony sucks and is pretty much the living embodiment of Larry David’s character on Curb
6:09 pm on September 17th, 2008
I think I know what he was going for:
“I took high school Spanish, either he said he’s not going to be caught, or please pick up my dry cleaning tomorrow.”
I believe he is making fun of his own inability to speak Spanish. He’s referring to the fact that he doesn’t understand what the Spanish announcer was saying about the Jones return, so he threw in the dry cleaning line as an either/or proposition. It would have been funnier had he said:
“I took high school Spanish, either he said he’s not going to be caught, or the bathroom (or library) is in the back.”
Those of us that took Spanish might actually laugh at that, because first and second year Spanish consists a lot of “Where is the library?” or “Where is the bathroom”-type conversation.
Why he chose to go the dry cleaning route, I have no idea.
7:05 pm on September 17th, 2008
Yeah he was just reaching. Something he does quite a bit of the entire broadcast.
5:58 am on September 26th, 2008
Tony is the man. You can’t be flaming on him because he had a minor slip, hes only human. Knowing Tony from watching PTI for the better part of around three years it was probably a dodgy attempt at humour.
Don’t hate, appreciate…