Dick Clark Dead at 82

Legendary television producer and host Dick Clark has died at 82 of a massive heart attack. Clark had an incredibly long career on screen, so how you best remember him kind of depends on how many rings you have inside your own tree. For an older generation he was the host of “American Bandstand,” one of the pioneering shows in the field of meshing pop music with television. For others, he was the host of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” which a younger, more footie-pajama’d version of me always loved because it aired on one of the very few nights a year I was allowed to stay up until midnight with my parents watching television. And I’m sure for some of the young, footie-pajama’d kids of today, Dick Clark was just the old guy who stood next to Ryan Seacrest one night a year trying very hard to enunciate the words on the teleprompter despite suffering from the effects of a stroke. Time will do that.

I’m always a little uncomfortable being all earnest and sincere on a website most noted for GIFs of pretty ladies and pictures of dogs, but I really don’t get into the whole “somebody died, let’s make a sh-tty joke” thing that a lot of the Internet seems to get off on. If that’s what you want to do, fine. But keep in mind that Dick Clark lived a long life during which he did work that he seemed to enjoy the hell out of, and that he was great at. I really don’t see how any of us can ask for much more.

Rest in peace.