Longtime television critic for the Washington Post and author of the definitive oral history of Saturday Night Live, Shales passed away yesterday at age 79. I really enjoyed his columns, which were often insightful, witty and a little bit mean. RIP.
It’s funny, he first came to my attention when Spy Magazine would make fun of his weird fixation with Dana Delany. It turned out, though, that he was a pretty intelligent writer, and he knew his stuff. RIP.
I remember when he used to do movie reviews on NPR on Friday mornings back in the days when Bob Edwards was hosting Morning Edition. Always entertaining even though it seemed like he hated every movie he reviewed. For the life of me I can’t remember which movie he was reviewing, but he described it as being like a Road Runner cartoon that was written by the Brontë sisters. 