Before 'Spy,' Magazines Weren't Even Printed on Paper
It's another "how great was Spy" piece, this time from The Observer (Graydon Carter's subsequent gig):
Had it not been for Spy, of course, there never would've been a Gawker Stalker (Spy loved maps, anonymity), nor Ashton Kutcher's Punk'd (Spy loved pranks), nor VH1's "Best Week Ever" (Spy loved postmortems). Nor, the creators suggest a bit grandiosely, a Daily Show (though in fairness, the Brits—and even Saturday Night Live—have been satirizing TV news for decades).
Nor an internet, nor snark, nor, let's face it, humor itself. In all of recorded history prior to Spy no one had ever been funny before. We give up. We're going to toss our old copies of Private Eye into the trash right now and bow down before the altar of two guys who invented the concept of "this celebrity looks like that celebrity." Thank you, Spy!
Also, if anyone out there has that great old New York picture of Graydon Carter picking his nose on the subway, we'd love a copy.
