Michael Ian Black ~ National Treasure
Michael Ian Black, the practically well-known comedian, father and quetzal has inexplicably become a celebrated national treasure. The nation that currently celebrates him is America, with Monaco registering a distant second.
While aging hipsters everywhere will claim to be familiar with his extensive work as a comedian, regular old Americans who are content to watch reruns of Married With Children or Dinosaurs every night enjoy celebrating his supporting role on the TV show Ed, and his brief stint as a man willing to impersonate a sock puppet and advertise pet supplies for a Klondike Bar.
This reporter personally remembers him best for his time spent quipping on VH1’s “I love the *past decade here*’s”. It was there that he honed his poker face, setting up a mirror next to the camera and resolutely refusing to laugh at his own jokes. After donating one of his larger poker jackpots to his alma mater, Bradley Cooper Union, the school went so far as to adopt “resolutely refusing to laugh at our own jokes” as their collegiate slogan. Fortiter nolunt rideat nostra iocorum. Though it is setting the bar rather low, considering you’re a business school, BCU.
Despite the fact that his Wikipedia page gives a detailed account of his life thus far, Michael Ian Black is a man shrouded in mystery, and usually some kind of cotton-poly blend. This dodgy shrouding leads some to question his status as a true national treasure.
Cat doctor Michael Showalter recently explained to a panel of leering tuna testers that Michael Ian Black’s status as a national treasure was not thrust upon him due to his self-deprecating body of work. It had more to do, Showalter reminisces, with the ancient runes hidden deep within his abdomen, like those space rocks that were inside the blue trance-opera singer in The Fifth Element.
It is with this in mind that we celebrate Michael Ian Black’s life, and eventual demise. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his services to the planet, and America as a whole, which anyone who follows him on Twitter has already paid in full.
