# Dan Rather and "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-rather-and-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/276934
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 28, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-rather-and-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/276934 "2004-11-28T00:46:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-rather-and-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/276934/21 "2004-11-29T00:01:24Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> No, but people laugh at things that are sudden or unexpected and bizarre. The whole episode was like something Ionesco would have written. Sometimes situations are both tragic and comical. I don’t know whether you’ll be successful in changing humanity’s perception of humor since the ancient Greeks with little more than stern moralizing, but good luck nonetheless.
True, and I’m no saint. The fact is, I’m scolding myself as well as everyone else. I laughed at the story when I first heard it, just like everyone else. If the story had ENDED with the assault on Dan Rather, I might still think it funny. Knowing that the story didn’t end there, that a sick individual went untreated and eventually killed somebody, however, robs the story of its fun. For me, anyway.
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### Author:  [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2004, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-rather-and-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/276934/22 "2004-11-29T09:54:11Z")
> [@Gamaliel](#):
>
> Why don’t you come out and just say what that “something else” is? You seem to be insinuating something vaguely sinister which I simply just can’t see. All I see is that REM may have heard a song on an album by Game Theory and (DUM DUM DUM!) released an entirely different song with a similar title seven years later. **Gasp!**
Because it’s neither serious enough or likely enough to go off saying “Copycat, Copycat, nyah, nyah, nyah.”
Can you _really_ not tell what “something else” means in this context? Really?
Plus in today’s popular music landscape, young listeners don’t bat an eye if someone rips off someone else’s song note-for-note then uses it to sell their own line of pimp shoes, so I reckon there’s really no point.
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### Author:  [@Reepicheep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reepicheep)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-rather-and-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/276934/23 "2004-11-29T14:28:13Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#):
>
> Was there any particular reason why the assailant called him “Kenneth”?
The way I heard it was that “Kenneth” was Dan Rather’s double from another [planet.](http://www.ape-o-naut.org/innuendo/)
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### Author:  [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2004, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dan-rather-and-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/276934/24 "2004-11-29T18:35:14Z")
> [@bienville](#):
>
> Did the 1994 song (of which I was aware) come out before or after the 1994 murder (of which I was not aware).
If I recall correctly, the connection between Rather and Tager was only discovered in 1997 or so.
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