Thurber Tonight: Keith Olbermann reads the conclusion of "The Greatest Man in the World"

Keith Olbermann reads Part 3 of Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World."

The last two nights we had Part 1 and Part 2 of Keith Olbermann's Countdown "Fridays with Thurber" reading of Thurber's "prophetic" story "The Greatest Man in the World." Here's the conclusion, which apparently appeared only online. -- Ken


TOMORROW AND THURSDAY IN THURBER TONIGHT

For the record, "The Greatest Man in the World" first appeared in book form in The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, a 1935 collection a fair amount of which was absorbed into The Thurber Carnival. I thought that since we've already dipped into The Middle-Aged Man, we might finish out the week with two pieces further pieces from it, which might be thought of as two skirmishes in "The War Between Men and Women."

These are not, um, comfortable relationships we're going to be peeking at, and yet even so, there are distinctions to observe. Our stories fall on opposite sides of an invisible line that marks, well, the line -- the line that once you've stepped over, you've overstepped. We begin tomorrow night with "The Topaz Cufflinks Mystery." (Okay, if you must know, Thursday night's story is one I find seriously amusing but also strikingly, ineffably poignant, "The Curb in the Sky.")


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Thurber Tonight: Keith Olbermann reads "The Greatest Man in the World," Part 2

Keith Olbermann reads Part 2 of Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World."

by Ken

Last night we had Part 1 of Keith Olbermann's Countdown "Fridays with Thurber" reading of the dark Thurber fantasy "The Greatest Man in the World." We'll finish up tomorrow night with Part 3.


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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Thurber Tonight: Keith Olbermann reads "The Greatest Man in the World," Part 1

Keith Olbermann reads Part 1 of Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World."

by Ken

As I mentioned in the "postscript" to our reading of Ring Lardner's "Champion,": "With 'Champion' under our belts we've got an obvious segue" to Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World."

I noticed that Keith Olbermann did a reading of the story in his "Fridays with Thurber" series on Countdown, in three parts -- of which the third, if I understand his introduction correctly, appeared only online because of a scheduling crunch. Believe it or not, I've never seen any of Keith's Thurber spots till now. (I guess Countdown didn't often figure in my Friday night routines, such are they are.) But naturally a number of people have mentioned to them, and I've long been aware that Keith also has a passion for such luminaries as Jean Shepherd and Bob and Ray, and had the good fortune and good sense to get to know Bob Elliott, one of my personal heroes. So it all kind of fits together.

Anyway, since Keith has already done a ton of heavy lifting on "The Greatest Man in the World," and since the three parts of his reading are available online, I thought I'd defer to him on this one. Here's Part 1, with Part 2 to follow tomorrow night and Part 3 on Tuesday.

(I find it interesting that the 1969-70 series My World and Welcome to It, in which William Window played a Thurber-like writer enduring Thurber-like situations, was Keith's turn-on to Thurber. I wish I was as enthusiastic about the show, which seemed to me to have about the same relationship to actual Thurber as the fictional Alan Brady Show depicted on The Dick Van Dyke Show did to the Sid Caesar shows on which series creator Carl Reiner distantly based it, by a process known as "white-breading." I swear, that, when I thought up this analogy, I had no recollection that My World and Welcome to It like The Dick Van Dyke Show was produced by Sheldon Leonard's production company.)


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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